Jinchuuriki and the sea of monsters
by shamhlu
Summary: This is a continuation of the demi-jinchuuriki series, I hope you enjoy but you might want to read the others first or you'll be confused. Spoilers for the sea of monsters.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I'm back, hope you enjoy.**

Percy jolted awake. He sat upright, knocking off the little ball of silver that had been sleeping there, who yipped. The boy rubbed his eyes for a second, then jumped out of bed and helped his fallen friend up, "sorry Anchor." He said, petting the fox behind his ears as the fox darted his eyes across the room in search of a threat, "just a bad dream." He muttered to the fox who slowly calmed down.

The fox made a sound like he was purring, and Percy smiled. Now that Gabe was gone, his furry friend was allowed to live with them. A few days after he had returned home, he and his mom had gone back to Montauk (over a weekend, he didn't want to mess with his chances at a new school so early by skipping classes, that was usually saved for the end of the year). The fox had shown up once more and they enjoyed a short weekend with him, and at the end, brought him back to their apartment.

They went to a vet to make sure he wasn't carrying any disease and to give him a standard checkout of course, but it was strange. Apparently, the woman only saw a white Labrador instead of the silver fox. Percy didn't feel like arguing since he didn't really want to draw attention to his buddy or anything.

After that the fox had moved in with the two of them, mostly sleeping on Percy, like he had the night before. His mother, didn't like this, but no matter what, the fox somehow found himself on top of Percy in the morning. A month of trying (and failing) to stop the fox later, Sally gave in and them keep to the sleeping arrangements.

Percy smiled as the fox liked his hand. Looking at the fox, he couldn't help but think of his 'twin' or was it triplets? Quadruplets?

Back in camp half-blood, the safe haven for demi-gods from gods, monsters and school lived another two foxes, three if you count the tree. This might be a little unusual, but maybe the camp has a mascot? Well, these foxes were a little different, you see, all of them are identical.

No, they don't just look the same, they are all identical, their fur colour, their eye colour, their voices… well that last one only applies to the two at camp. Oh, yeah, they can talk too, because that's a thing.

We've lost the point in all this, the foxes were all the same, like too the same. They all hate each other because they're… wrong. See, there's this feeling they get, like the other one is just an abomination that they need to attack.

Percy don't know much about the other foxes, but he did know a good bit about Anchor. He showed up on Montauk beach a few years ago, and started playing. Him and Percy became friends, and every year the demi-god would return to him, earning him the name 'Anchor' since he kept Percy and his mom there.

Oh, you didn't read wrong there either. Demi-god. Percy is the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the ocean and resident deadbeat dad. He, and all the other Olympians were currently living it up a few hundred floors above the empire state building.

Anchor suddenly turned around to stare at Percy's window. He tilted his head in confusion, and Percy followed his gaze, there was nothing there, wait! For a moment it looked like something was moving, a shadow and a glint of silver?

Anchor growled.

Percy reached to his pillow, where Riptide (his magic pen sword, just go with it) was kept.

"Percy, you're going to be late!"

Both eyes momentarily turned from the window at the call, so they missed the flash of silver that moved across the glass for half a second before disappearing. When they looked back there was nothing out of the ordinary. Their gazes lingered for a while longer before Percy sighed.

"Must have been nothing, if it was a monster we'd already be fighting." He took on more glance before turning to the fox. "Come on boy, let me up." Percy said, shifting the fox off him gently, the fox's gaze never wavered.

"Come on, dear," Sally called again, "last day of school. You should be excited! You've almost made it!"

"Coming." Percy said weakly.

"Oh, remember to feed Anchor, his bowls empty."

He sighed, before removing the pen from under his pillow and holding it tightly. Anchor looked uneasy at the sight of it, the first time he had seen it the fox nearly lost his nose uncapping it.

The demi-god sighed before making a three-fingered claw over his heart, an ancient Greek gesture for warding off danger. The fox eyed the sign in confusion.

"I had a bad dream." Percy said to the fox, "you wouldn't believe it."

The fox looked at him strangely, as if to say, 'you're a demi-god, I don't think things can get stranger' and Percy grinned at him.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, so, you remember what I said about Grover? Well, he was running from something, in Florida I think…" And so, Percy got dressed as he told his friend about the strange dream, about how Grover seemed so terrified, and he needed to warn somebody about something. "So, what do you think? Just a dream?"

The fox stared up at him blankly before nodding his head. Percy grinned.

"Yeah, thought so." He smiled and rubbed the fox behind the ears. He then turned to the door, "just one more day to go." He looked to the fox, "think I can make it through this year?"

The fox shook his head immediately.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

The fox just flashed the boy a grin.

"Right, well come on, we need to eat, I'm late enough as it is." He opened the door and both of them moved to the kitchen. Percy sat at the table, while Anchor sat in his lap, munching on any of the debris that fell his way or was smuggled there by the demi-god, Sally, his mother, smirked at the two of them, giving Percy extra waffles and eggs, knowing full well between the two of them they could finish her supply of blue food dye.

As she began to wash the dishes she turned and looked sadly at her son, "Percy are you okay?"

"Yeah… fine." He said, in a poor attempt to lie.

"School, or…" She trailed off, turning to face Percy properly.

"I think Grover's in trouble," Percy said, repeating his dream again.

She pursed her lips, and looked a little uncomfortable, "I wouldn't be too worried, dear," she said. "Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem, I'm sure we would've heard from... from camp..." Her shoulders tensed as she said the word camp.

"What is it?" Percy asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I'll tell you what. This afternoon we'll celebrate the end of school. I'll take you two… and Tyson to Rockefeller Centre, to that skateboard shop you like."

The fox yipped and jumped to Sally, getting crumbs all over her apron, she smiled at the fox and picked him up. The little ball of silver curled around her arm and licked her hand, probably searching for more food.

"Wait a minute," Percy said. "I thought we were packing me up for camp tonight."

She put Anchor down. "Ah, dear, about that... I got a message from Chiron last night."

Percy looked downtrodden. "What did he say?"

"He thinks... it might not be safe for you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone."

"Postpone? Mom, how could it not be safe? I'm a half-blood! It's like the only safe place on earth for me!"

The fox barked at Percy for shouting, he never liked raised voices, it was almost as bad as fireworks. The fox went under the table and stuck his head in Percy's bag and put his paws over his ears, so he didn't hear the loud noises. Then, for a second, there was a silver aura around him and the fox shrunk until he slipped into the bag easily. All of this went unnoticed to the mother and son as they continued.

"Usually, dear. But with the problems they're having-"

"What problems?"

"Percy... I'm very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can't explain it all now. I'm not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly."

Percy looked like he had a million questions, but he didn't get the chance to answer them, because just then, the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.

Sally looked almost relieved. "Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson will be waiting."

"But-"

"Percy, we'll talk this afternoon. Go on to school."

Percy gathered up his bag, not hearing the fox yip as he was shifted into the bottom of the bag by the movement. Just before he was going to leave, he stopped in the doorway. "Mom, this problem at camp. Does it... could it have anything to do with my dream about Grover?"

She wouldn't look him in the eyes. "We'll talk this afternoon, dear. I'll explain... as much as I can."

Percy sighed before pulling her into a hug, "bye mom." He said, squeezing her lightly.

"Goodbye sweetie." She said before letting go.

"Where'd Anchor go?" Percy asked looking around for the silver fox.

His mother frowned, "I think he left while we were talking, he's probably in your room." She glanced at the clock, "you need to hurry."

Percy sighed, normally the fox would be here to say goodbye, the only days he hadn't been here, were when his sister came to visit. The fox always seemed to disappear when his sister showed up, hell, he wasn't even sure Yagura knew about his friend.

Over the break, she had come around every once in a while, maybe once a month. His mom loved her, even if the daughter of the sea was a bit skittish at first, Percy wasn't exactly sure why, but his sister had been nervous the first few times she had been here. Eventually, she warmed up to Sally Jackson, frankly, Percy couldn't see how anyone couldn't, she was just the nicest person in the world.

With a dejected sigh, he jogged downstairs to catch the Number Two train.

As he stepped outside, a stray glance at the brownstone building across the street revealed, just for a second, a dark shape in the morning sunlight. A human silhouette against the brick wall, a shadow that belonged to no one.

Then it rippled and vanished.

Percy blinked and glanced around for anyone else thoroughly freaked out, there were very few people, all of them walking around without a care in the world. As his eyes passed over everything, he saw a glimpse of silver shinning in an ally not far away, a second later it was gone.

Very nervous now, Percy ignored the strange noises coming from his bag and quickly made his way to the train.

In the ally, Annabeth Chase appeared next to the glowing silver ball of fluff that was Whiskers, "what the hell is wrong with him?" She muttered to the fox as it leaped to her shoulder.

"I don't know." Whiskers said.

"But we need all of you to keep you safe, was that not made clear to him?"

"I don't know, but we'd better keep an eye on him, things have just got more complicated."

"Yeah."

The daughter of Athena turned to look at the fox wearily, "do you think you'll be able to control yourself?"

The fox sighed, "it's not me I'd be worried about, the other fox has had no contact with any of us, I don't even think he can speak yet."

Annabeth bit her lip, "do you want to stay out of this?"

"No, but I'll keep my distance."

"I don't think that's an option, we'll be taking the cab."

The fox looked uncomfortable, "just to clarify, when you say, the cab, do you mean you're going to call a cab, or you're going to call _the_ cab?"

She gave him a look.

"You know, thinking back on it…" He sniffed deeply, "hellhound, three o'clock." She turned and sure enough a hellhound was sniffing about on the other side of the road.

"Gods damnit." Annabeth cursed, pulling her knife out, the monster turned right at that moment and growled at them.

It wasn't the biggest hound either had faced, in fact this one could be considered rather runty, only reaching the size of a bike. But, as they had learned, size didn't matter in a fight, sure it helped, but it could work against you.

They waited in the ally, it was probably the most isolated area they could be in, going out into the streets was out, so this was really their only option.

The hound bolted at them, thundering over the road and entering the ally in a few seconds. It just kept running as it came closer, not slowing down, anyone inexperienced would have panicked, but neither of them could be described as inexperienced.

Annabeth lunged forward, surprising it, and lodged her dagger into its head, it was over that quickly, this monster was obviously very inexperienced.

"Come on," Whiskers said, "we're going to lose Percy at this rate."

Speaking of, the demi-god had made it to his school, Meriweather College Prep. A progressive school, where kids with ADHD could happily 'study'.

Unfortunately, that day was in no way normal, much like the tale of little Bo Peep, Percy had somehow managed to have a little follower. He only realised in his first class, English.

As he went to take his copy of 'Lord of the Fly's' from his bag, he came face to face with a rather surprising addition to his usual school supplies. A wet tongue came out of the bag and viciously licked his nose. Percy blinked. Then he blinked again.

"Anchor?" He asked in a whisper.

The fox yipped, and a few heads turned, but they quickly returned to their teacher who somehow managed to ignore the strange noise.

"What are you doing here?" He whispered, glancing around and making sure no one could see him, the only one looking at him was Tyson. The big guy was smiling happily at the sight of the fox that would sometimes visit with Percy.

The fox licked him again on the nose, bringing him back to the actual problem.

"Okay, I need you to be quiet buddy, alright?" He asked the fox.

The fox yipped quietly, and Percy smiled.

"Good, okay, now stay here, for now." He whispered, grabbing the book that was sitting in beside the fox and freeing a lot of room for him, he then realised something, "you look smaller than normal."

The fox shrugged and licked his hand again.

"Alright… maybe you are related to Whiskers." He muttered to himself.

The fox tilted his head to the side in confusion.

"Percy," the teacher said, bringing him back to the class, "you ready to start?" Percy nodded, "Alright, gang, now today for your final exam, we'll be re-enacting the book, so come on out into the yard and I'll be leaving you alone until the end of class."

This idea went exactly as you would expect it to, Matt Sloan, the resident school bully led a wedgie contest, two pebble fights and a full tackle basketball game. Percy and Tyson stayed away from the kids, not getting involved and trying to make sure no one noticed the fact that a fox was with them.

This was going well, until Sloan decided to try and wedgie Tyson, which resolved with him ending up with the much smaller boy getting tangled in the tire swing. When he escaped he started yelling at Tyson, causing him to sob.

Percy stuck up for him, making sure to hide Anchor in his jacket so none of the kids saw him, he yelled at the bully, but didn't fight him. He'd promised Chiron not to fight with mortals.

In the end, they all passed their English exam, their teacher claiming that they were all of them understood the book completely and that they would never grow up to be violent. Percy had to comfort Tyson, and tell him he wasn't a freak, offering him an extra peanut butter sandwich. Anchor let him pet him in an effort to stop the tears.

After that, they had science, where they were asked to make everything explode. Mrs Tesla passed them after Tyson knocked everything into the bin and a hazardous waste removal squad was called in.

Social studies came next and Percy found doing latitude and longitude to be easy, so he spent most of the time staring at the photo in his book. Specifically, the photo of Annabeth and Whiskers on vacation in Washington, D.C. In the photo, she was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place.

Anchor popped his head out and looked at the photo oddly, he always did that, maybe it was because of the other fox that looked like him. Maybe he was just trying to remember when that happened, but just couldn't remember being there. The fox ducked back in the bag as Matt Sloan turned around, bringing Percy back to reality. He moved to take the photo out of the rings, but Percy grabbed his hand.

"Let go Jackson." Sloan said like he was in control. Percy closed his book slowly and let go of Sloan who shook his wrist to get the feeling back.

A few kids turned and glared at him, looking like they were backing up Sloan, they looked new if their tags had anything to say. They all had weird names like Marrow Sucker, Skull Eater and Joe Bob.

"These guys are moving here next year," Sloan bragged, like Percy cared.

"I bet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend."

"He's not retarded." Percy's knuckles whitened.

"You're such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."

The bell rang.

As Tyson and Percy were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"

Percy was still spooked from earlier and glanced nervously around, there was no one about, from his bag there was a soft growl, the fox was uneasy. He might have caught sight of a silver sparkle, but just then they were swarmed by a crowd of kids. It was time for PE. Free for all dodge-ball. Yay.

The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. He then guarded as Tyson got changed, though it was kind of awkward, he asked for Percy to do this most days. It's mostly because he's hairy and he's got weird scars on his back that no one ever had the courage to ask him about.

When they reached the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading Sports Illustrated. Nunley was ancient and had bifocals, no teeth and a greasy wave of grey hair. He didn't move much and there was a high chance that he was glued to his chair.

Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"

"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Mm-hmm."

Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. Percy was soon the other team's captain, but it didn't matter who was picked for his side, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan's side. As well as the big group of visitors.

On team Percy, was Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and a half-dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang.

Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.

"Scared," Tyson mumbled. "Smell funny."

Percy looked at him funnily. "What smells funny?"

"Them." Tyson pointed at Sloan's new friends. "Smell funny."

The visitors were cracking their knuckles, grins on their faces that looked so much more sinister than any kid had any right being

Sloan blew the coach's whistle and the game began. Sloan's team ran for the centre line. Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu and ran for the exit. Corey Bailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of the team did their best to cower in fear and not look like targets.

"Tyson," Percy said. "Let's g-"

A ball slammed into him gut. He sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other team exploded in laughter.

Tyson yelled, "Percy, duck!"

He rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound. It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.

"Hey!" Percy yelled at Sloan's team. "You could kill somebody!"

The visitor named Joe Bob grinned even wider. Somehow, he looked a lot bigger now... even taller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. "I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!"

Oh dear, it seemed they were monsters.

All around Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattooed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.

Percy heard a growl, right behind him, fearing another monster he turned and was surprised. Anchor was standing at Percy's chest height growling at the monsters. It was official, him and Whiskers were related.

The giants stared at the fox wearily and a few kids screamed yelling about an escaped lion, at least the Mist was being kind today. The kids on Sloan's team who hadn't gone through extreme puberty started screaming and backing toward the exit. The majority managed to make it out, but the giant named Marrow Sucker managed to break out of whatever stupor Anchor had put them in.

He threw a ball and it hit the door, slamming it shut like magic. A small handful of kids were left, they rushed the door and banged on it desperately, but it wouldn't budge.

"Let them go!" Percy yelled at the giants. Anchor growled and rushed one before anyone could talk, his teeth sank into Skull Eater and the monster burst into dust. The others looked weary and muttered something between themselves.

"Montauk fox." Percy heard one say.

Anchor backed away though when one waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the centre line. These balls weren't made of red rubber, though, no, they were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like whiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must've been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.

"Stupid fox." One said, "you'd better taste really good."

A few kids yelled for the coach to interfere, Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn't let on. "Yeah. Mm-hmm," Coach muttered. "Play nice." And went back to his magazine.

All five of them aimed their balls at Anchor, and Percy was about to rush and help him, but the fox jumped up and clung to the ceiling. Balls went flying and parts of the roof collapsed and fell, one hit a giant and he roared, lifting it of him and throwing it at the fox, who dodged it easily.

Percy rushed for the doors, maybe if he could get them over he could get Riptide, he looked to the cowering school kids, "Run!" He told them. "The other exit!"

They ran for the locker room, and managed to escape while the giants were distracted, but Corey fell on the way and Percy turned to help. One of the giants noticed and waved his hand, that door also slammed shut. Before it did, Percy managed to chuck the kid through it and into the gym, now all that were left were the giants, Percy, Tyson, Coach and Anchor. Just then Sloan snuck from his hiding place, revealing he also hadn't escaped.

"Lunch has escaped." Joe Bob roared, turning his gaze to Percy. "Come here Perseus!" He roared and launched a ball at the demi-god. A few of the others also directed their attention to the demi-god, allowing the fox to tear the throat of one of them lowering their numbers to four.

Another fireball came streaking toward the demigod and Tyson pushed him out of the way, but the explosion still blew him back. He was sprawled out on the floor in a daze, sizzling holes all over his shirt. Just across the centre line, a hungry giant was glaring down at him.

"Flesh!" he bellowed. "Hero flesh for lunch!" They both took aim.

"Percy needs help!" Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of him just as they threw their balls.

"Tyson!" He screamed, but it was too late.

Both balls slammed into him and he'd caught them. Somehow, he sent them hurtling back toward their surprised owners, who screamed, "BAAAAAD!" as the bronze spheres exploded against his chest. The giant disintegrated in a column of flame.

"My brothers!" Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Baby cakes tattoo rippled. "You will pay for their destruction!"

"Tyson!" Percy said. "Look out!"

Another comet hurtled toward the two. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley's head and landed in the bleachers, or what was now the flaming wreckage that resembled the bleachers.

Coach Nunley still wasn't seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine. Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The headmaster, the police, somebody would come to help. Maybe some of the kids would get help, or the Mist would mess things up even more.

"Victory will be ours!" roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. "We will feast on your bones!"

He hefted another ball, the other three giants – two giants, Anchor tore the throat of another - followed his lead.

They would be hard pressed to survive now, Percy glanced at the locker room door and then seemed to make his mind up, running towards it.

Explosions hit where he had been standing and Tyson deflected the two that had been aimed at him they flew back toward their owners and blasted them to ashes.

That left Joe Bob still standing.

A third ball hurtled straight at Percy. And he waited for as long as he dared, then dove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.

The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym.

Tyson rushed towards the last giant, but he had already grabbed another ball and taken aim, he launched it straight towards Tyson.

"No!" Percy yelled.

The ball caught Tyson square in the chest and he slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. No normal person could have survived that, but Tyson only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.

He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.

Before he could do anything though, Anchor landed on his shoulder and tore into it, barely missing the throat. The giant roared and swatted him off, the fox rolled in mid-air and landed on his feet sliding away a little, he was panting hard and glaring at the giant.

Percy glanced around, searching for Riptide, before he finally found his jeans lying in a heap at the giant's feet. Percy rushed him, Anchor joining and charged him, the giant looked nervous and raised his ball, switching between targets like he couldn't decide who to throw the ball at.

He never got the chance as his body went rigid, surprise masking his features. The tip of a blade glinted out of his stomach like that movie 'alien' and he dropped the ball. He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame.

Standing in the smoke was Annabeth with a familiar fox beside her, Percy was surprised and was about to question her, but there was a problem: Anchor didn't stop running.

Annabeth seemed to realise this and looked at Percy. "Tell him to stop." She said eyeing the fox running towards her, no, not her, Whiskers.

The fox jumped back and ran to the only wall still standing, climbing it and leading the other fox on a chase around the wall.

Percy was shocked for a minute before Annabeth spoke again, "Percy!" Her voice was angry, "call him off!"

"Anchor!" Percy yelled, gaining the fox's attention, "come here."

The fox glanced at the other fox who had stopped moving too, and then back to Percy.

"Anchor." Percy said, "come on."

The fox gave in and jumped down, shrinking as he did, becoming just shorter than Percy's forearm. He jumped up and Percy caught him, he smiled down at the fox.

"You did great boy, but how did you do all that? And why did they call you the Montauk fox?"

The fox tilted his head as if thinking an answer before finally deciding to just bark.

"Right." Percy said.

Annabeth walked over to him, passing Matt Sloan along the way and decking him in the nose, breaking it and causing him to fall unconscious.

Percy finally took a look at all the damages done to the gym most of it was on fire and the walls were all busted. One of the intercoms was hanging by a few wires and a garbled voice came in. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, was wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him, as well as all of the students who managed to escape.

Annabeth was in front of him, staring at him with an unreadable expression, her hair was in disarray and her clothes had tears in them. Whiskers was on her shoulder suddenly and Anchor growled at him from his position in Percy's arms, Whiskers didn't look to happy, though he was the one who was chased across a wall, so it was to be expected.

"Annabeth..." Percy managed to stammer out. "How did you... how long have you..."

"Pretty much all morning." She sheathed her bronze knife but kept her eyes locked on Percy. "I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone."

"The shadow I saw this morning… that was…" Percy's face burned. "Oh, my gods, you were looking in my bedroom window?"

"There's no time to explain!" she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself, Whiskers sniggered to himself. "I just didn't want to-"

"There!" a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.

"Meet me outside," Annabeth said. "And him." She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste and Whiskers looked like he'd eaten something sour.

"You'd better bring him."

"What?"

"No time!" she said. "Hurry!"

She put on her Yankees baseball cap, and instantly vanished.

That left Anchor and Percy standing in a burning gym with Tyson sitting at the side still dazed.

"Percy Jackson?" Mr. Bonsai said. "What... how..."

Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."

Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on the fox in Percy's arms with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He brought a tiger to school and set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!"

Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."

The adults turned to look at him and Percy did the smart thing he grabbed Riptide out of his ruined jeans, told Tyson, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.

(Los Angles)

Bianca di Angelo opened her eyes and blinked, she had had a really weird dream. She checked the alarm clock on her bedside table and glared at the alarm that had woken her. She wished that the stupid thing would just disappear, there was a brief tingling feeling in her stomach that she chalked up to hunger. She sighed, and sat up going to hit the button but her hand meat nothing but air.

She turned back to the alarm and found it missing.

"What the hell?" She said to herself.

A quick glance behind the table found nothing but her secret supply of dark chocolate (Nico kept stealing hers). She glanced under her bed, nope, nothing. Where had it gone?

"Bianca!" Her brother called from the kitchen, "hurry up, your eggs are getting cold!"

She smiled lightly to herself, the past year had been amazing. Living with a big brother like Utakata life was just so much easier. Both she and Nico were going to a private school named High Hall, it wasn't that far away, and their tuition was being payed by their trust fund. It wasn't the best school, specifically for them, since they had both been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia.

The school was very old fashioned and didn't accept their 'excuses' when it came to their work, or at least they didn't… on about the third day, Nico was forced to stay behind for detention for misreading a passage in English. Once Utakata got word of this he marched right up to the school (Bianca in tow) and proceeded to (metaphorically) destroy the principal.

The fifty-year-old man was righteously terrified and gave in almost immediately, Bianca wasn't exactly sure what he said, she had been waiting in the foyer but apparently, the teacher, Mr Bilberry got his pay docked.

After that, the school tiptoed around the di Angelo children, making sure to treat them fairly for their conditions. And so, the past year had been pretty good for the two of them, the school offered to bring in a tutor to help, but Utakata wasn't comfortable with it. He eventually gave in, and now every Tuesday and Thursday, the two of them had lessons, Bianca had inquired as to why he didn't want them to have a tutor, but he asked her to leave it.

Bianca put on her dressing gown and slippers and quickly moved downstairs to the kitchen. It looked the same as it had when they first arrived, same dark tiles, same table, same Nico munching on eggs and bacon.

"Sis!" He greeted, or at least tried to, his mouth was full, so it came out more like 'hihs' and also came out with half a mouthful of bacon.

""Don't talk with your mouth full."" Both Bianca and Utakata said.

The middle child turned to look at her big brother, he was facing away from them, but you could see he was wearing his black dressing gown with a black apron over the top that said, 'If you're reading this, you're burnt' in tiny font. His hair was a mess, he hadn't had it cut ever as far as his siblings knew.

"Yours is on the table." Utakata said, pointing with a spatula.

"Thanks," she said, zeroing in on the bacon and eggs, she glanced around, "where's Volpe?"

Nico opened his mouth to speak but Bianca glared at him, he chewed quickly before swallowing and looking back to her, "he's out the back, he had his already." She nodded to her brother.

She then turned to her other brother, Utakata was focused on the eggs he was currently scrambling while the younger two tore their food apart. A few seconds later his eggs were done, and he sat down with his siblings.

"It's your last day today isn't it?" He asked.

"No, tomorrow's half day." Bianca answered.

Utakata frowned, before taking a deep breath, "right, sorry."

"Is there something wrong?" Bianca asked.

"No, just something at work." He replied. The eldest wouldn't tell his siblings just where he worked, always changing the subject when it came up, in fact, this was the most they had heard about it. All they knew was that he worked most nights and that he was usually exhausted, yet he still did the little things for them, like make breakfast and their lunches.

"What is it?" Nico asked.

He looked up and showed the dark bags under his eyes, he hadn't slept at all last night by the looks of it, he looked paler too, like he hadn't been outside in weeks.

He blinked, as if just realising who he was talking to. "Nothing you need worry yourselves with."

Bianca bit her lip, she didn't like how tired he was all the time, she had tried to talk him into letting them sort themselves out, but he wouldn't hear it. He insisted on doing things like that himself, of course, they still did chores, but there were some random things he just insisted on doing himself, mostly things to do with food.

"You need to rest." Bianca said, grabbing his hand, "you look exhausted." She muttered.

"I'm fine." He smiled but it looked forced, "don't worry, you'll be late if you don't hurry up and eat."

"But-"

He grabbed her fork and stabbed some bacon, "come on eat up." He said with a grin.

She sighed and took the fork from him and chewing on the bacon slowly as he watched her.

"What are you doing in school today?" Utakata asked

"Oh, we're doing a project in history!" Nico exclaimed happily, "we've to learn all about how the Greeks lived!"

"Great, what are you doing about in it?" Utakata asked.

"Well, my group have to do about their religions and cults and stuff. So, we split it up, Dave's doing Zeus, John's doing Poseidon and I'm doing Hades!" Nico said happily. "Hades is so cool, he rules the dead and has a big three headed dog and has-" The two elder siblings both ended up listening to their brother rant on and on about how the god of the dead was so cool.

"That sounds good Nico." Utakata said when he was finished, "but it's your second last day, should you not have it finished by now?"

"Yeah, we're handing it all in today, and it's gonna be used next year as an example!" He said excitedly.

"Sounds great." The eldest said with a smile, "what about you," he said turning to his sister, "anything interesting?"

Bianca shook her head, "no, just the same."

"Right," he looked up at the clock, "we should probably get changed, the bus will be here soon." He said, going to the counter he grabbed Mythomagic lunchbox for Nico and a plastic bag for Bianca.

"Thanks." Bianca said.

"Thanks!" Nico cheered, "what's in the sandwich? Is it chicken? Tuna? Ham?"

"Ham." Utakata said, "buttered, on pan bread, you've also got an apple and orange juice in yours, and a mars bar. Bianca, you have ham, an orange and plain water, and a mars bar too."

""Thanks."" They both said.

He smiled at the two, "now go on, hurry up, I'll be there to pick you up today." He said.

Both eyes widened, "did you get off work?" Bianca asked.

"Yeah, I thought it was your last day, so I got the next while off." He smiled, "I just need to go in while you're at school and then I'm off."

"That's great!" Nico said, "we can go to the park and play Mythomagic and-" He went on another rant which his older siblings tuned out.

"So yeah, I'll be picking you up at half three, I hopefully won't be late, but if I am, just go to the library for a bit, I'll come pick you up. Now hurry up and get changed, you'll be late otherwise."

The two quickly ran to their rooms and got changed, both excited to spend more time with there brother, something they hadn't had much of since he started his job. They went in to say goodbye to their brother, he smirked at them.

"I'll see you soon," He said with a grin.

With that, the two of them went to pick up their bags and went for the door. As they were about to leave though Bianca realised she left her copy of 'the Giver' on her desk. Since it was the second last day, they were expected to bring the school books back in, she didn't want to bring it late.

"Head on, I need to grab something." She told Nico.

She rushed to her room but stopped when she reached her brother's room, it's door ajar, she could hear him talking. Maybe he was on the phone, but the house didn't have any, not even a landline, there wasn't one when they got here, and Utakata simply didn't buy one. Maybe he had a mobile?

She didn't want to eavesdrop, but when she heard what he was talking about she just could resist:

"Bianca is going to realise soon." She heard her brother say, he sounded worried.

There was muffled noise from the room, the voice must have been really deep. For some reason, the voice just sounded familiar.

"They will start to find us, me being here is enough of a target, with Nico turning eleven…"

More muffled talk.

"I understand, but why not go to camp-"

The muffled voice sounded annoyed.

"But they'd have me, you don't need to claim them, they can wait in the-"

Angrier words.

"Fine… but we can't stay here, they'll find us, and the humans will just get in the way."

The voice was back to calm.

"Move? But they're only just getting used to living here now."

Bianca bit her lip, who was her brother talking to, and why was he suggesting they move?

"I know, but… fine." Utakata agreed, "I'll see what I can do over the summer, see if there are any schools more… isolated. I'm also going to start training them."

The voice sounded slightly more annoyed.

"Not in that, just the basics, they'll need it."

There were footsteps and Bianca moved quickly, but not quick enough.

"Bianca?" Utakata questioned.

She turned and saw him with something in his hands, she didn't get a good look at it before he shifted it behind his back, but it was black. From what she saw it was a big black stick.

"Sorry, I just needed to grab a book." She said, taking off before he could ask anything else.

Her mind was racing by the time she reached her room, she almost forgot what she came to do, but managed to grab the book before leaving. Before she left her brother stopped her.

"Hey, what's the rush?" He asked.

"N-nothing." She stuttered.

"Right," he said, "listen, did you hear anything?"

"N-no." She squeaked.

He sighed, "alright, how much did you hear?"

"Not much, I should probably go." She said in a rush, she pushed past her brother and strolled out the door, her brother not stopping her. When she looked back he looked even more tired than usual.

She just about made it to the bus, Nico having stalled the bus driver for a few minutes so that she could catch up.

"Why'd you take so long sis?" He asked.

"Just had to… find my book" She said, sounding off.

What was he talking about? who would find them? What camp? Why was Nico turning eleven a big thing? What training was he talking about? And what the hell was going on?

"Sis?" Nico said, sounding worried, she realised he must have been talking to her.

"Sorry, what?" She asked quietly.

"I asked if you were okay?"

"I'm fine," she smiled hollowly, "I'm just… excited to be getting out of school now."

Nico grinned, "yeah, me too, I wonder if we'll go anywhere, maybe I can finish my figurine collection."

"Yeah, how many do you need?" She asked, trying to distract herself from what she overheard.

"Four, I need the wine dude, sparky-sparky boom man, our friend downstairs and sunshine." They both smirked at the names their older brother had randomly given the gods.

"Good to hear." She smiled at her little brother, her thoughts eventually went back to what she had overheard, something that stood out to her:

'Bianca is going to realise soon.'

What would she realise, and why was it so bad?

Her thoughts came to a halt as the bus stopped in front of the school, disembarking, they slowly meandered into the building, the other kids buzzed about happily, saying what they were doing over the summer. None too quietly either. She heard kids boasting about trips to Spain and France, a few people going on cruises, one kid was boasting the loudest, talking about how he had won tickets to the 'Princess Andromeda luxury cruise ship' to the others.

The two siblings stayed away from everyone, one thing that they didn't like about their new school was the lack of friends. No one seemed to like them. People avoided them like the plague, but that was okay, since they kept each other company. Neither told their new big brother about their shared lack of friends, he would worry.

Besides, if what she heard earlier was right, they wouldn't be here long.

As she passed on of her classmates - Jenny? Sarah? Claire! Yeah, Claire - she saw her passing out invitations to her fourteenth birthday. The girl didn't even look her way, passing an invite out to nearly every other member of their class. She ignored the bitter feeling she felt at the sight of it.

Thinking about that made her realise it was only a few months until her next birthday. They wouldn't have an extravagant party like Claire, it would just be her, her brothers and Volpe, so much better than any flashy party. She smirked when she remembered her last birthday:

She had made an offhanded comment to Utakata about it and he bought a cake, made her favourite dinner (peperoni pizza with anchovies, olives and extra cheese (and it wasn't because she was Italian, it was her mom's favourite)) and taught Volpe to sing (bark) happy birthday. He did this all in one hour!

She smiled at Nico as they split up, going to their classes, they were right on time. She entered her class to find a new face in her teacher's place. Instead of the elderly old Mrs Josephine, a middle-aged man wearing black shades rimmed with gold. He had a jacket that looked like it was made of bird feathers, like huge bird feathers. Under that was a gold coloured shirt, a gold chain hung from his neck while on each finger were gold rings. There was a bit of a pattern here with the gold.

When she entered the room, the guy took one look at her from behind his glasses, then he took a deep breath and a menacing grin appeared on his face.

"Ah," he said, "Miss… di Angelo, you're late, stay behind after school for detention." He said, she blinked and looked at the clock, it was only eight fifty-six, there were even kids coming in behind her, but the man paid no attention to them, his dark glasses focused only on her.

"Umm… sorry, but who are you?" She asked.

"And disrespectful too? Well, that won't do, you are to come to detention sharply at the end of the day and we will talk about your punishment then."

"But-"

"Now sit down and stay quiet." The man said, Bianca stood her ground however.

"I've done nothing wrong." She said angrily.

"Miss di Angelo." The man said dangerously, "you will do as your told, or I will report you to the principal." He threatened, "now if you're done interrupting the class will you please sit down."

She then noticed that the class was sitting in their seats, all staring at her as she argued with the teacher, she blushed lightly and took a seat away from everyone else. She could see them whispering between each other.

"Now class," the man said, "now that our troublesome student has decided to stay quiet." He said, making Bianca blush more as the class turned to her again, she hid in her hat, her face going completely red to the point that the green hat looked like the stalk of a tomato. "I am Mr Glephonada." He said, writing it on the board, but to Bianca it looked more like 'Grape-shooter' but that was probably the dyslexia kicking in.

"What happened to Mrs Josephine?" One kid asked.

"She's fallen ill." The man answered quickly, "now, since this is your second last day, we will be doing-" the man began and immediately Bianca lost him, the window being much more interesting.

The day passed quickly, most classes were doing 'fun' activities since it was near the end of the school year. Bianca didn't care, she was worrying a bit about the detention, her brother had taken the next few days off for them, the least she could do was be there for it.

At lunch she met up with Nico in the canteen and she told him about what happened that morning, he looked annoyed but said he'd tell Utakata. After that the day was gone in the blink of an eye, and she found herself outside Mr Glephonada's room.

She knocked and waited, a minute passed before the door opened and the grinning man let her in, "now Miss di Angelo," he began with a creepy grin, "we need to talk about your tardiness, several teachers have been complaining about how you have been late to their classes-"

"I've been early to all my classes today sir." Bianca interrupted.

"Don't interrupt!" The man yelled, slamming a hand down on his desk. She jumped back, knocking over a seat, "they were also complaining about your attitude and clumsiness."

He moved to the door and slid the lock across the door with a click before turning back to her.

"Now," he said, reaching for his glasses, "I think it's quite rude, not to look someone in the eye." He tore off the shades and placed them on the table.

Turning to her he revealed his face to her, only there was something wrong, instead of a pair of eyes, he had a single eye in his forehead. He grinned menacingly, showing his large molars.

Bianca's eyes widened, and she backed away from the man, "w-what are you?" She asked terror in her voice.

"That does not matter little godling." He said with a grin.

Suddenly and idea came to her, a vague memory from playing with Nico and his Mythomagic, "you're a cyclops." She said, her voice trembling.

The man… no monster howled angrily, a guttural sound coming from… well his gut.

"A cyclops?" He asked, "a cyclops?!" He slammed his hand down on the desk making a spider wed crack appear on it, "I am not one of those mindless oaf's!" He yelled, "so many of you stupid demi-gods mistake my kind for those foolish clunky buffoons!"

"S-so you're not a cyclops?" She asked, terror creeping into her voice again.

"No!" He roared, "as if those incompetent fools could compare to I." He muttered, "no foolish girl, I am not a cyclops, I am an Arimaspi." He said, he raised his arms as if he expected a shocked gasp, or a look of horrified realisation. Instead, Bianca just gave him a blank look.

"Umm, what's an Arimaspi?" She asked.

He grunted, "foolish girl, how have you not heard of the Arimaspi? We are the mighty warriors of legend who slay gryphons and steal their gold." He glanced at her as if expecting her to recognise a title. "Of course, you demi-gods know nothing of our greatness, you always tried to avoid us." He growled.

"Umm, I'm sorry sir, but I think you have the wrong person, I'm not a demi-god, I'm just a normal human." She said, nervously backing away from the man.

"Ha, you think you can fool me? That trick might fool a cyclops, but it won't work on I, our intelligence is much higher, you think a cyclops could steal from gryphons, or kill them, no, they are too dull. I can smell your scent, I know what you are."

"But-" Bianca backed away again, her back hit the wall as she was trying to figure out what to say to the mad monster.

"Enough, I will feast on you, then I will find your brother, he will serve as a nice desert." The monster slowly walked over to her a menacing grin on his face.

Something in Bianca snapped, sure he could attack her, but bring Nico into this…

Her eyes hardened, and she felt a tug in her stomach and suddenly the room was much darker, her 'teacher' seemed to realise it too.

"What are you doing little half-blood." There was a tone of unease in his voice.

The tug got stronger until she felt like a lead pole was sticking out of her, the shadows danced around her, they looked alive, like a creature straight out of someone's hellish nightmares. The girl winced at the pain in her stomach but stared the monster down.

"Don't touch my brother." She said angrily, her voice not much more than a whisper, but the room was so silent it seemed like the only sound.

The monster looked confused, before the terror that was in her eyes had invaded his, "no, you can't be… he hasn't had a child since…" His eyes widened, and he rushed for the door, seeming to forget that he locked it.

A shadow moved towards him like a cloud of smoke, it engulfed him, and he screamed in terror as he was cocooned in the darkness.

Bianca fell to her knees, briefly aware of a voice calling her name. She looked up when the door was smashed open and stared at the fuzzy image of a man in black. She fell forward, but the man was with her, he caught her and lifted her up. Looking up she could make out the unmistakable eyes of her brother looking down at her worried, then her world went black.

(Pennsylvania)

Zoe sighed as she looked at the campsite, after finding 'Whiskers' and gave him back to Annabeth Chase, an excellent candidate for the hunters, they had found no more traces of Naruto. So many years dedicated to this one hunt and only now were they beginning to find him.

The other three were out getting food while she guarded the camp site. Not that there was much that would attack them, none of them were demi-gods, so they had no scent, the only thing to worry about would be the wild animals that tried to steal their food. The four of them could handle anything that would attack here easily, so there was no need to worry.

Being here did give them a chance to reflect, and for Zoe all she could think about was the shame she had brought to herself. It all started when she began having dreams of the fox, which led to her getting banished from the hunt, finding a fox (who happened to be her lady's son in disguise and the source of her banishment) and then being freed from her curse.

This led to her leading three of her newest sisters, Kurenai, Yugao and Anko, on a quest to find her lady's son. As it turned out, these three had been close to Naruto, almost like sisters. This was kind of awkward at the start seeing as she had accidently shot Naruto through the head which led to this whole mess.

At first, they had been wary of her, but over the course of a few months, they began to warm to her more, like all of the other hunters. Then they found out that she had been with Naruto, the fox, for some time during her banishment, she had even named him Naruto.

She sighed again, shaking her head, she should have realised there was something strange about a glowing silver fox that came to her and learned to speak. To be fair, in the Greek and Roman world, things like that were pretty par for the course.

Ah, the Greek _and_ Roman world. Zoe smiled nostalgically, she had been there for the rise and fall of Rome, it was so long ago now but she could still remember the hunts she had partaken back then. She even remembered the first time she had met Diana, her lady's Roman form. With the Greek and Roman divide, she hadn't seen Diana for a while.

When the gods decided to split up the Greeks from the Romans the hunters were affected too. Diana and Artemis had fought for a long time over custody of the hunters, in the end the hunt was split. It had been some time since her and her Roman sisters had seen each other, she sadly wondered how many had perished or left the hunt since she had seen them. For all she knew they were all dead and Diana no longer had a hunt.

The rustling of bushes distracted her from the thoughts, she fingered her bow, ready to draw it at a moments notice. It wasn't needed though, it was Anko, returning with a doe slung over her back.

"Hey." Anko said, with a grin.

Zoe smiled back, "thou hath made a good catch, we shalt feast for many days."

"Yeah." Anko said as she mentally translated the words into new English, then into Japanese.

"Where art thine sisters?" The elder hunter asked.

"Kurenai went to get some water, and Yugao went to get more wood." Anko replied, "they'll be back soon though."

"Good."

"Well, let's start cooking." Anko said, laying the deer down and getting a knife out to skin the deer.

"Indeed," Zoe said.

They skinned the animal and removed the inedible bits, they made a sacrifice to their patron for a good hunt and began to cook the meat. By the time the other two came back, they already had most of the meat slowly cooking over the fire.

"Hey, good catch." Kurenai said eying the deer in appreciation, "we'll be happy for the next while at least."

"Yeah, keep some out for breakfast tomorrow, I'm getting kind of sick of plain bread." Yugao said, one of the downsides of a long hunt, is the lack of food at the ready for you.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to do that, now come on, it'll get cold." Anko said.

They sat down and began their meal, quietly munching on the meat. They were very quiet, after being with three people mostly without contact from others, you began to run out of things to talk about.

Fortunately, Anko had a question:

"Hey, Zoe," she began, "you know the mask and cloak?"

"Why doth thou care about the remnant of my curse?" She asked.

Anko sighed, "they were Naruto's, he wore them for a long time, I was just wondering if you kept them or…"

"I hath kept them in my tent, they art a reminder of my curse." She said.

"Could I see them?" She asked, Zoe and the others looked confused, "I don't have the best of memories while he wore them, but… I just…" She didn't really know what to say.

"Of course, thou may see them, use them if it tis thy will." Zoe said, a sad smile on her face.

They finished eating in silence, and at the end, Anko went into her tent and came out with a cloak and a mask. All three of them stared at them, no one spoke. Anko took the mask with shaking hands from Zoe, a soft smile on her face.

She ran her hand over the mask, the grooves running over it felt strange to her almost familiar, even as she held it, it felt strange it almost seemed to hum, almost like…

"No way." Anko said to herself, but the others heard.

"What is it?" Yugao asked.

"These, these are storage seals." Anko said, "he made storage seals all over the mask."

"What?" Yugao asked, she took the mask from Anko and stared at it, "they're weird, incomplete, but fully functional, it's like theirs something missing." Being an ANBU forced her to study up on seals, she wasn't in any way a master, but she could do the basics.

"Let me see." Kurenai said, taking the mask from the purple haired girl, she studied it for a minute, looking the intricate patterns in confusion, her forehead creased the longer she stared at it, "you're right, it looks simple enough, a standard storage seal, but… it's missing the release."

"What do you mean?" Anko asked.

"The trigger, the on and off button basically." Yugao replied.

"But it's holding something though." Kurenai said, "that should be impossible, the thing being stored would never be able to be brought out again. But, it's here." She looked even more confused.

"That shouldn't be possible." Yugao commented to catch the other two up to date.

"Can you activate it?" Anko asked.

The two 'experts' stared at her as if she was mad.

"No," Yugao said, "the point of the release is to send chakra into the seal safely, without it you're just putting chakra into a reactive mask. It would explode."

"Oh, so that's a no." Anko said with a nod.

Zoe had been quiet, simply staring at the mask, "thou seal, how doth they work?"

"Well…" Kurenai began, "the seals are basically little patterns, each pattern does something unique and when you put them together, you can make it do amazing things."

"They art thine lines drawn on thy mask?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah, they make up the seal, the only problem is that it is missing parts." Yugao said.

They were silent for a moment before Zoe approached and looked at the mask in confusion, "doth these lines need to be drawn on?"

Kurenai hummed, "not really, but you'd need something to act as a conduit, otherwise the chakra just won't stay."

"So, he doth not have the ability to use thy lines to make the seal?" Zoe questioned.

Yugao shook her head, "no, it would need to be something more than that, the only way would be if he…" She widened her eyes and took the mask, her finger went to one of the grooves of the mask and she ran her finger through it, a grin appeared. "He's a genius, he drew the seal on the side of the groove, you would never be able to tell there was a seal there without checking, it's signature is hidden by the rest of the seal, only a sensor could tell, and even then, they would be hard pressed to find it."

"Well, can you open it?" Anko asked.

"Yeah, I just need to pump some chakra into the release." Kurenai said, placing her hand on one of the grooves going around the eye hole, but Zoe placed a hand on stopping her.

"Thou wouldst sneak through thine friend's belongings?" She asked.

The three of them frowned to themselves, they glanced to the mask and looked at it uncomfortably.

"Should we?" Anko asked, mostly herself.

The four of them looked at each other uncomfortably, before they had all been happy to look at whatever was in the seal but thinking about breeching his privacy was putting them off it now.

"It might have something on his jutsu." Kurenai suggested, "maybe a quicker method to gathering him up."

"Maybe." Yugao said, "but what if it's something more… personal."

"Should we take the risk?" Anko asked.

"There are three seals, none of them look like they can hold anything more than a shoebox. Whatever's in there is small." Kurenai said.

"Does't thou truly believe they mask contains a beneficial item to our quest?" Zoe asked.

"It's possible," Yugao said, "I don't exactly know what he would keep in here, it's obviously important to him if he kept it this close to him at all times."

"Then thou shalt open it, if, even a small chance ist better than our quest failing." Zoe said.

Anko nodded at that, Kurenai and Yugao shared a look before nodding to each other.

"Alright, we'll open it." Yugao said, "but if it's anything personal, we'll leave it, agreed?"

"Agreed." The other three said.

Yugao turned the mask around and pumped a little charka into the mask, the seal coming to life and humming gently, before a puff of smoke enveloped the mask. The smoke blocked their view for a second before they all finally found what was in seal number 1. Zoe's eyes narrowed in confusion as she stared at Yugao's hand. Anko's eyes narrowed like Zoe's before widening in shock while Kurenai and Yugao both skipped confusion and went straight to shock.

"No way…" Yugao said shakily.

"Where did… when did… how did…" Kurenai couldn't finish her sentence.

"Is that what I think it is?" Anko asked.

"What hath thou become so frazzled for, what is it that Naruto saw fit to hide in the confines of thy mask?" Zoe asked, not seeing how something so small could cause worry for the usually fearless hunters.

 **A/N: I wonder what it is? Well, we'll find out soon, hopefully.**

 **So, I kind of want your** **opinion** **on something. See, I've been wondering, should I make shorter chapters but make them more Riordan-esk, by having them done from one persons POV, or should I stick to bigger chapters with multiple locations? I will probably be able to get things out quicker if I do the shorter chapters, but I'm more worried about the quality, so what do you think?**

 **Also, I think I mentioned this in the last chapter of the last part, but could any of you think of any weapons for Bianca to use, because I don't just want to have her use just a sword like Nico or her bow from the hunters, any ideas are welcome, either PM or comment if you have any ideas.**

 **Also, I hope you figured this out from my *cough* subtle *cough* writing, but Bianca is 14, I haven't been able to find a birthday for her so I'm going with my own because if I change it now it will be hard to figure out how much I need to change.**

 **On another note... what's in the seal? Guess in the comments. I won't give anything away though. Good luck.**

 **See you next time.**


	2. Chapter 2

Annabeth paced the alleyway as she waited for Percy to meet them, a scowl marred her face. Whiskers sat beside her watching her, waiting for her to calm down.

"A cyclops?" She muttered to herself angrily, "first he's keeping a fox without saying to anyone, now he's got a cyclops following him around?" She muttered.

"Annie, calm down." Whiskers said, "there's probably a very good reason for it, maybe someone knows about my… other part, maybe like us, they let him keep an eye on him."

"But why wouldn't he have said anything?" She asked.

"I don't know, maybe he just didn't think you would be interested, he did say that Yagura had been visiting, surely she would know. Maybe he was asked to keep this one a secret, especially with…" He trailed off and looked at her.

"Luke…" She whispered.

"Yeah, we would be a strong weapon for him."

"He won't get his hands on you." She said, turning away from him and clenching her fists.

"Don't worry about me." Whiskers said calmly, hoping up and climbing up her leg onto her shoulder, "we both have enough to worry about without thinking about that."

Their conversation would have continued if a panting Percy and Tyson hadn't entered the ally, the other fox was held in Percy's arms. Annabeth glared at Percy.

"Where'd you find him?" she demanded, pointing at Tyson. "And him?" She pointed to the fox nestled in his arms, at this Percy protectively wrapped his arms around the fox.

"They're my friends," Percy told her, a look of confusion coming to his face.

She sighed to herself glancing at the fox then to Whiskers, who shook his head, she sighed before turning a glare to the cyclops. "What about him. Is he homeless?"

"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him? And why are you so annoyed with Anchor, I mean I guess he's like Whiskers, but he doesn't need to be jealous."

"I'm not jealous." Whiskers said, "did Yagura not tell you about what happens when we're together?"

"Yagura?" Percy looked surprised, "what does she have to do with anything?"

"Did she not visit?" Whiskers asked.

"Yeah," Percy said, but he frowned a bit, "but I haven't seen her in a while, why? What's going on?"

Tyson suddenly decided to speak up, he took a glance to Whiskers and smiled, "Percy, there's another Anchor." He said excitably, grinning like a kid in a candy store, he reached out as if to pet the new fox.

Annabeth shifted Whiskers away from him, like she expected him to try and attack there and then. This just brought more focus to her, he stared at her and smiled dozily. "You are pretty." He said.

"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth stepped away from him.

Percy scowled slightly before moving over to the big guy, he glanced at his hands, looking for wounds from their game with the cannibals. "Tyson," he said in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."

"Of course not," Annabeth muttered. "I'm surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around."

Tyson focused in on Whiskers, staring at him for a bit before reaching out to touch him again, Annabeth smacked his hand away this time.

"Annabeth," Percy said, "what are you talking about? Laistry-what?"

"Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I've never seen them as far south as New York before."

"Laistry—I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Canadians," she decided. "Now come on, we have to get out of here. But don't think this will be over, we still need to figure out why you're allowed to keep him." She gestured to Anchor who was glaring at Whiskers.

"Wait, what? Why wouldn't I, he's my friend?" Percy sounded annoyed, and was beginning to get defensive, wrapping his arms around the fox protectively.

"That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams?"

"The dreams... about Grover?"

Her face turned pale. "Grover? No, what about Grover?"

Percy told her quickly went through his dream. "Why? What were you dreaming about?"

Her eyes hardened. "Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."

"My mom was saying the same thing! But what kind of trouble?"

"I don't know exactly. Something's wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. Have you had a lot of attacks?"

He shook his head. "None all year... until today."

"None? But how..." Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. "Canadians in the gym called Percy something... Son of the Sea God?"

The demi-gods and Whiskers exchanged looks.

"Big guy," Percy began, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena-"

"Yes," Tyson said.

"Well... those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods."

"Yes," Tyson said, simply.

"Uh, well, Annabeth and I are half-bloods," he said. "We're like... heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."

"Yes."

"So, you believe me?" Percy asked confusedly.

Tyson nodded. "But you are... Son of the Sea God?"

"Yeah," Percy admitted. "My dad is Poseidon."

Tyson frowned, looking confused. "But then..."

A siren wailed, and a police car raced past the alley, followed by a fire engine.

"We don't have time for this," Annabeth said. "We'll talk in the taxi."

"A taxi all the way to camp?" Percy asked in confusion. "You know how much money-"

"Trust me."

Percy shifted uneasily. "What about Tyson? We can't just leave them. He'll be in trouble, too. And Anchor? He wouldn't make it home himself."

"Of course, we're taking him… Anchor." Whiskers said, "it's like you don't even know anything about us. As for the other…" He looked to Annabeth, who looked grim.

"We definitely need to take him. Now come on." She finally said.

They left quickly down the alley, following the blonde daughter of Athena and her fox.

"Here." Annabeth stopped at a corner and fished around in her backpack. "I hope I have one left."

"What are you looking for?" Percy asked, as sirens wailed in the background.

"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.

"Annabeth," Percy said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."

"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês!"

Whiskers sighed, "why can't we just walk." He mumbled.

She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened, melting into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space, bubbling blood, until a car erupted from the ooze.

It was like a regular taxi, but it wasn't yellow, more a smoky grey. Like it was made of the collective breaths of every smoker on the planet. There were words printed on the door, THE GREY SISTERS.

The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair over her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she had just work up hungover. "Passage? Passage?"

"Five to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at the others to get in.

"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!" She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.

"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."

"Done!" the woman screamed.

Percy got in the cab, bringing Anchor with him on his knee, Tyson followed, squeezing in the middle and Annabeth got in last, Whiskers sitting comfortably in her lap. As soon as they got in, Whiskers wrapped the belt around the two of them, well, belt is a strong word, it was a large black chain that looked like it would hurt more than it would help.

The three-identical old lady's in the front whispered amongst themselves for a minute, one shot turned and glanced at both Whiskers and Anchor but did so fast enough that her head was more a grey blur. The whispers increased, before the one driving stopped. "Business first." She said finally, before turning to the road, "Long Island!"

She floored the accelerator, and the three passengers may have gotten whiplash from the speed they moved at. The fox's looked like they had it the worst, both slammed into the chests of their current seat, but both were small enough that they didn't hurt the demi-gods.

A few seconds after initial take off, a pre-recorded voice came on over the speaker: "Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!" Percy glanced the chain, then looked away, hoping it wouldn't come to that.

The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the lady sitting in the middle screeched, "Look out! Go left!"

"Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!" the driver complained.

The driver swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling thump, and flew into the next block.

"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it."

"You bit it last time, Anger!" said the driver, whose name must've been Wasp. "It's my turn!"

"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger.

The middle one, Tempest, screamed, "Red light!"

"Brake!" yelled Anger.

Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box.

"Excuse me," Percy said. "But... can you see?"

"No!" screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.

"No!" screamed Tempest from the middle.

"Of course!" screamed Anger by the shotgun window.

Percy spared a worrisome glance to Annabeth. "They're blind?"

"Not completely," Annabeth said. "They have an eye."

"One eye?"

"Yeah."

"Each?"

"No. One eye total."

Anchor barked something loudly and shifted under Percy shirt in an effort to hide from the outside world.

"You said it." Whiskers shouted back, "we shouldn't be here."

There was a muffled growl from Percy's stomach.

"Oi, shut up, I don't like agreeing with you either."

Another bark, this time Whiskers growled back, this evolved into a barking match between the two of them that Annabeth tried to break up while trying not to throw up.

Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. "Not feeling so good."

"Oh, man," Percy said worriedly. "Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?"

The three grey ladies were too busy squabbling to pay any attention. Whiskers and Anchor were both trying to avoid flying around the cab and Annabeth was hanging on for dear life. Percy sent her a look and she just glared back.

"Hey," she said, "Grey Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp, well unless you count going by boat." She turned green at that. The boat she was referring to, was the one that had ferried them across from the beach in Santa Monica to camp in a couple days. For Percy, it was great, Annabeth not so much, and the less said about Grover's experience on the boat the better.

"Then why didn't you take it from Virginia? Or better yet, give my sister a call?"

"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities. And your sister isn't easy to contact, and she's busy, they all are." She said the last bit quieter, but everyone picked up on it. "Regardless, they're the fastest option we have at the moment."

For a moment the cab was silent, before all the squabbling started again, Whiskers and Anchor yipped at each other, Tyson groaned in pain, Annabeth tried to quieten the two foxes down and Percy was wincing at being in the immediate splash zone of his large friend. As for the grey sisters…

"Give me the tooth!" Anger tried to grab at Wasp's mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.

"Only if Tempest gives me the eye!"

"No!" Tempest screeched. "You had it yesterday!"

"But I'm driving, you old hag!"

"Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!"

Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street before punching the gas and shooting up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour.

The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp's face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest's. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, revealing their single tooth in the mouth of Wasp. They kept on fighting, the road long forgotten as they fought over the tooth.

Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp's mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, "'Ivit back! 'Ivit back!"

Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.

"Uh, if anybody's interested," Percy said over the chaos, "we're going to die!"

"Don't worry," Annabeth said in a worried tone. "The Grey Sisters know what they're doing. They're really very wise."

"Yes, wise!" Anger grinned in the rear-view mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth. "We know things!"

"Every street in Manhattan!" Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. "The capital of Nepal!"

"The location you seek!" Tempest added.

Immediately her sisters pummelled her from either side, screaming, "Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn't even ask yet!"

"What?" Percy asked in confusion. "What location? I'm not seeking any-"

"Nothing!" Tempest said. "You're right, boy. It's nothing!"

"Tell me."

"No!" they all screamed.

"The last time we told, it was horrible!" Tempest said.

"Eye tossed in a lake!" Anger agreed.

"Years to find it again!" Wasp moaned. "And speaking of that, give it back!"

"No!" yelled Anger.

"Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"

She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger's face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into the lump in Percy's stomach.

From within the shirt, Anchor yipped and swatted the eye away with his tail, making it bounce off the window and fall to the floor.

"I can't see!" all three sisters yelled.

"Give me the eye!" Wasp wailed.

"Give her the eye!" Annabeth screamed.

"I don't have it!" Percy yelled back.

"There, by your foot," Annabeth said. "Don't step on it! Get it!"

"I'm not picking that up!"

The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing grey smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.

"Going to be sick!" Tyson warned.

"Annabeth," Percy yelled, "let Tyson use your backpack!"

"Are you crazy? Get the eye!"

Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. The cab hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any taxi had any right going. The Grey Sisters screeched and pummelled each other and cried out for their eye.

Percy took a deep breath, ripped off a chunk of his T-shirt, specifically, where Anchor's head came out and reached down with it to pick the eyeball off the floor. Unfortunately, it was a bit late, by releasing Anchor he let the fox get a good look at the eye, Anchor yipped in disgust, but saw Percy reach for it, he remembered playing fetch with the boy, he was reaching for it in the same way as he did when he was going for the drool covered stick.

The fox, ignoring the cab's speed that should have flattened him to Percy's chest, jumped to the floor and took the eye in his mouth.

"No! Anchor no!" Percy yelled.

The fox looked up at him, he saw the shook and disgust from both Percy and Annabeth and tilted his head in confusion. The grey sisters wailed, guessing what had happened and Tyson groaned even louder. Whiskers turned away from the scene in disgust.

"Anchor, put down the eye." Percy said firmly, putting his hand, with the cloth, in front of the fox. Anchor whined slightly but complied, leaving a soggy eye in Percy's hand.

"Boy!" Anger cried, seeming to instinctively know who now had her missing eye. "Give it back!"

"Not until you explain," Percy said firmly in the same tone as he talked to Anchor with. "What were you talking about, the location I seek?"

"No time!" Tempest cried. "Accelerating!"

A glance out the window showed this, trees and cars and whole neighbourhoods were now zipping by in a grey blur. They had already made it out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.

"Percy," Annabeth warned, "they can't find our destination without the eye. We'll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces."

Whiskers looked at him, "stop the damn car." He said looking pretty uncomfortable, even Anchor, who had just seconds ago eaten a functional eye, was looking pretty green.

"First, they have to tell me," Percy said. "Or I'll feed the eye to Anchor." The fox looked at him at the mention of his name and tilted his head.

"No!" the Grey Sisters wailed. "Too dangerous!"

"Anchor, you hungry, buddy?"

"Wait!" the Grey Sisters screamed. "30, 31, 75, 12!"

"What do you mean?" Percy asked. "That makes no sense!"

"30, 31, 75, 12!" Anger wailed. "That's all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!"

The has escaped the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. Half-Blood Hill was now ahead of them, with its giant pine tree at the crest, Thalia's tree, which contained the life force or a fallen hero and her fox, one who was said to be identical to Whiskers, which meant identical to Anchor.

"Percy!" Annabeth said more urgently. "Give them the eye now!"

Without arguing, he threw the eye into Wasp's lap, Anchor whined at the loss of food.

The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. "Whoa!" She slammed on the brakes and the taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill.

Tyson let loose a huge belch. "Better now."

"All right," Percy told the Grey Sisters. "Now tell me what those numbers mean."

"No time!" Annabeth opened her door. "We have to get out now."

He looked ready to argue, but one look to the border showed him why. At the crest of the hill was a group of campers, and they were under attack from two hulking bulls the size of elephants made of gleaming bronze and huffing out fire every other breath.

As soon as the three of them were out, the cab left, not even stopping for their extra payment. Though if you listened closely you could hear Anger say, "at least he didn't ask about the fox's," to which her siblings started clawing at her telling her to shut up.

"Oh, man," said Annabeth, looking at the battle raging on the hill.

Both Whiskers and Anchor were both glued to the spot, both staring at the huge pine that made the barrier around camp. Both had equal looks of shock and confusion on their faces as they stood there.

Ten campers stood at the base of the pine, shields at the ready while two more where fighting the huge monsters. One of them was huge, bulky and was wearing so much armour you wouldn't be able to see their face, it was almost impossible to tell who it was, except only one person wore that much armour. Hana.

The armour was different than the last time they had seen it, instead of the previous blood red colour scheme, the entire thing glistened in bronze. A wide brimmed hat and face mask hid her face with the exception of her eyes. The biggest difference they could see was the lack of the huge bulky engine she kept on her back, instead, this had been replaced by what looked like exhaust engines coming up over her shoulders aiming behind her, they led to a belt on her waist. Steam was coming out of the exhausts with enough force to push her forward and slam into the bull.

The bull's jaw shattered under her blow, but it looked otherwise unharmed.

The other figure fighting the monsters was much smaller, but that didn't exactly narrow it down. What did give it away, was the red hair and beard. Roshi, Annabeth's brother was currently going one on one with the other bull. He was wearing a camp shirt with a red hoodie over it, and sweatpants. In one hand was a spear, in the other was a strange hat with the symbol of Athena, an owl, on the front.

He stared at the bull as it rushed towards him, a frown on his face, with a sigh he stuck the hat on his head and disappeared, just like Annabeth in her baseball cap. The bull looked confused for a moment, slowing down and looking around for the demi-god. After a second the bull roared and reared its head back, part of its armour being torn off it and landing on the ground.

It swung its head round, looking like it was having a game of Buckaroo with an invisible… oh.

Percy uncapped his ballpoint pen watching it shimmer and grow until he held the bronze sword Anaklusmos. "Tyson, stay here. I don't want you taking any more chances."

"No!" Annabeth said. "We need him."

Percy stared at her like she was stupid, something one rarely does with a child of Athena. "He's mortal. He got lucky with the dodge balls, but he can't-"

"Percy, do you know what those are up there? The Colchis bulls, made by Hephaestus himself. We can't fight them without Medea's Sunscreen SPF 50,000. We'll get burned to a crisp."

"Medea's what?"

Annabeth rummaged through her backpack and cursed. "I had a jar of tropical coconut scent sitting on my night-stand at home. Why didn't I bring it?"

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not going to let Tyson get fried."

"Percy-" Annabeth tried desperately but was ignored.

"Tyson, stay back." he raised his sword. "I'm going in."

Tyson tried to protest, but by this point, Percy was already running up the hill towards buck-buck-buckaroo.

Annabeth put her own cap on and ran straight towards the group of campers standing at the hill, leaving the two foxes and Tyson at the base of the hill.

Percy was running straight towards Hana, who had been slugging the bull so hard its armour had dents all over, at the moment she was holding the two horns in each hand, crumpling them beneath her fingers. The bull blasted her with fire and Percy felt his heart stop.

He needn't have worried though, when the flames stopped the girl stood there without a scratch. She let go of one horn and placed her hand on the bulls' forehead, before pulling with all her strength at the other horn, it groaned before finally coming free. She then gripped the other horn again and began slamming her new knife into the bulls' head.

Yeah, she was fine.

Instead he ran to the still bucking bull that was probably trying to loosen the grip of Roshi. Just in time to get a face full of a flying redhead.

They both fell in a pile, and Percy groaned in pain.

"Percy?" The older demi-god questioned in confusion.

"Hey Roshi, how's it going?" Percy groaned.

"What are you… never mind, get up." He said, hoping to his feet and turning to the bull, who had now decided to charge them again. Percy made it to his feet too and stood beside the son of Athena.

"How fire-proof are you?" Roshi asked.

"Umm, not?" Percy said.

"Right, then move out of the way, or this'll probably hurt." Roshi said, gripping his spear with both hands he raised it up and stabbed it into the ground. He went through some weird hand movements and then gripped the spear before whispering something.

The world heated up, and Percy moved back, The, earth in front of the bull distorted slightly, the grass disappearing. When the bull ran into it, it just sank like it was quicksand, thrashing all the way.

"What did you do?" Percy asked.

"Hopefully stalled it." Roshi said, "now, let's hope it doesn't get out for a while." The demi-god wiped some sweat from his brow. The bull decided to pick that moment to tear itself out of the ground and restarted the charge towards them. Percy reacted by grabbing the other demi-god and throwing him to the right of the bulls' direct line, before launching himself to the left.

He managed to land a slight blow to the bull's side as it passed, but it did nothing to stop it. The bull turned and faced Percy, seeming to glare with its ruby red eyes, that were literally rubies, it seemed to hold a grudge against him now. Taking a deep breath, Percy lunged but the Bull blew flames at him. A combat role to the side avoided roasted demi-god, unfortunately, as he got up his foot snagged on something, a tree root, and he hit the ground.

As he fell, he still managed to slash the bulls nose with his sword sword and lop off part of the monster's snout. It galloped away, wild and disoriented, but unfortunately, when he tried to stand, and his left leg buckled.

There was no way he could avoid the bull as it ran straight towards him, he vaguely heard a few of the campers by the tree yell out, and he watched as a handful of javelins bounced off the bull's metal hide.

Annabeth shouted out, "Tyson, help him!"

Somewhere near, toward the crest of the hill, Tyson wailed, "Can't get through!"

"I, Annabeth Chase, give you permission to enter camp!"

Thunder shook the hillside followed by a pair of thundering footsteps heading his way, but the bull was already too close. Tyson was too far away, Roshi barrelled in from side and landed on its back, slamming his spear in, but it did nothing to stop the monsters charge.

"Roshi." A familiar voice called from behind Percy, "get off."

The demi-god jumped, and a huge stream of water blasted into the bull, careening it off course and causing it to slam into the ground, sliding to a stop near Percy. Steam came from its armour and the heat dialled back several hundred degrees.

Percy turned and found himself staring at a familiar green haired figure. Her hooked staff on her back and Greek armour on her chest, the same camp shirt as everyone else but with no helmet. She smiled at him, "hey Percy." Yagura said with a grin.

"Hey sis," Percy replied, "what are you doing here?"

"I'm here for the next shift at the border." She said, "what are you doing here?"

"Not much."

"Right." The bull shifted but by now Tyson had reached it and punched it on the nose.

"No being mean to Percy!" He roared as one punch nearly took the head off the monster, instead it just twisted its head backwords in a strange homage to 'the exorcist'. It stopped moving after that.

Annabeth ran over to check on Percy, bringing a small battalion of campers with her. One handed him some ambrosia and he ate it quickly, already able to move after one bite of the food of the gods.

"The other bull?" Percy asked.

Annabeth pointed down the hill where Hana was staring at a pile of scrap metal, picking random pieces out and placing them in another pile. The less usable bits went in another pile, that pile was much bigger.

One of the campers removed their helmets, revealing Clarisse to the group, "what the hell is wrong with you?" She yelled at the son of Poseidon.

Percy was too stunned to answer, but Annabeth grumbled, "good to see you too, Clarisse."

"Argh!" Clarisse screamed. "Don't get me started on you Chase!"

"Clarisse, you're up." Roshi said, coming closer and sighing deeply, "you and your group are working with Yagura now."

She looked at the son of Athena and a small smirk made its way to her face before she turned back to Percy angrily glaring at him. "I'll be back," she growled, then trudged off to take over.

"Hana!" Roshi called out, the girl turned to him, "it's our break now, do you want a hand with that?"

The girl shook her head, "no, I'll take what I can salvage, but it's not much, I'll come back later to get the scrap metal!"

"You punched out a metal bull?" Percy asked Tyson.

Tyson shifted on his feet nervously, "sorry, disobeyed Percy."

"My fault," Annabeth said. "I had no choice. I had to let Tyson cross the boundary line to save you. Otherwise, you would've died. I didn't know Yagura would be here."

"Let him cross the boundary line?" Percy asked in confusion. "But-"

"Percy," she said, "have you ever looked at Tyson closely? I mean... in the face. Ignore the Mist, and really look at him."

Percy looked at her funny before turning to his big friend and looking up, for the first time and looking him in the eye. His one eye. The one large, calf-brown eye, right in the middle of his forehead, with thick lashes and big tears trickling down his cheeks on either side.

"Tyson," Percy managed to stammer. "You're a..."

"Cyclops," Annabeth offered. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson's one of the homeless orphans."

"One of the what?"

"They're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth said distastefully. "They're... mistakes, Percy. Children of nature spirits and gods... Well, one god in particular, usually... and they don't always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him decide what to do."

"But the fire. How-"

"He's a Cyclops." Annabeth paused, as if she were remembering something unpleasant. "They work the forges of the gods. They have to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell you."

This wasn't the time though, most of the hill was on fire, Percy quickly rectified that, he raised his hands and the water that Yagura had supplied rose and snuffed out the fires. Yagura looked impressed at that and gave him a grin.

"Well done Perc." She said, "now, you lot go on ahead, Roshi, would you bring them to the idiot?" She asked.

"Sure." Roshi replied, "hey Annabeth, how are you?"

"Idiot?" Annabeth asked, sounding mildly offended.

Both of them grimaced, "Tantalus, the new activities director." Yagura said with distaste.

"Chiron is the activities director. And where's Argus? He's head of security. He should be here."

Their grimaces got worse at the mention of Argus. "Argus got fired. Chiron too." Roshi said.

"But Chiron... He's trained kids to fight monsters for over three thousand years. He can't just be gone. What happened?" Percy said.

The two of them winced and, in unison, pointed to Thalia's tree.

The usual strong pine tree was sickly, its needles were yellow. A huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree. In the centre of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap.

Someone had poisoned it.

Annabeth froze and just stared at the tree for a second, a typhoon of emotions went through her face before she finally settled on anger. "Where's Chiron?"

The two elder siblings of the two of them shared a look, "hurry up." Yagura said, "you might catch him before he leaves."

Annabeth turned to the bottom of the hill and yelled down, "Whiskers!"

Her fox didn't move, in fact neither of them had moved from where they had got out of the cab, both were transfixed with the tree.

"Whiskers!" Annabeth called again, still no response.

Percy and Annabeth shared a look, before running down to the bottom of the hill where the foxes were.

"Whiskers," Annabeth said desperately, shaking the fox gently, she still got no response, she looked worried.

"Anchor?" Percy asked his fox, "what's going on?" He asked Annabeth.

"You found another?" Yagura asked, appearing next to them, she stared at the fox with an excited grin before it turned to a grimace, "at least today brought some good news."

"Another?" Percy asked in confusion.

"Yeah, another fox," Yagura said, "one more down, that brings the total to five if you count the one Utakata claims to have found," she frowned in thought for a moment. Seeming to notice for the first time that the demi-gods were trying to wake their companions from the trance she bit her lip, "don't worry about them freezing up here, this happened to the other one, Bandit, it only happens when they're near the tree, they should be fine when they're in camp proper, but they'll be jumpy for a while."

"Wait, why do you know so much about-" Percy began.

"Not now Percy," Annabeth said, picking up Whiskers and holding him like you would a new-born, she gestured he do the same, "we need to talk to Chiron."

(Los Angeles)

Bianca sprang awake, her eyes scanning the room looking for the monster, she was in her feet in moments her gaze bouncing around the room. It was her room, the same one she had been in that morning, where she had lived for the past year.

"Hey, calm down." She darted her eyes to the voice, Nico was sitting by her bed, a worried look in his eyes.

"Nico, where? What?" Her eyes widened, and she brought him into a hug.

"Sis?" He asked, "what's going on?"

"I thought he… you…" She muttered into his hair as she held onto him, "what happened?" She finally asked. They broke apart, and both sat down on the bed.

"Umm, Utakata said that your teacher was a psycho." Nico began, "apparently, he kidnapped your teacher and posed as a sub." His forehead creased in irritation, "he escaped from an institute or something, Utakata wouldn't tell me the details, I only heard this from the principal's office. Utakata was furious that he had managed to get into the school, he yelled at the principal for ages, he said that we wouldn't be going back there next year."

Bianca frowned, had she imagined the one eye? The fact that he called her a demi-god? The shadows bending to her will?

No, there was no way she could make all that up, but it didn't make sense. She couldn't remember much after the monster said he would hurt Nico, she just blacked out. Maybe-

"Good, your awake." Utakata said, walking into the room with a tray of food. "Here, you must be starving." He handed her some toast, she took it warily, she remembered what she overheard this morning, he had said she would realise something, what could it be? "You had a nasty shock, but don't worry, you won't be going there again."

"Nico said something about that." She muttered, not looking him in the eye.

"Yeah, I don't know how they managed to let the guy be a teacher for a day, he was a psychopath, even as they took him away, he was screaming about some nonsense with griffins and gold." He said, "it was a good thing you hit the fire alarm when you did."

"The fire-alarm?" Bianca asked, what was he talking about?

"Yeah, you must have knocked into it when you fell, the principal thought it was someone pulling a prank since no one else was in the building and the sensors didn't go off. We found him and you, I knocked him out and left him for the police."

Bianca stared at her brother, none of this made sense, the man had locked the doors, and the fire alarm was on the other side of the room from where she had been. What was going on?

"Now, neither of you are going in tomorrow, since you've had such a shock, and Nico will keep you company. You can go to the park with Volpe or something." The eldest said.

"Wait, where will you be?" Bianca asked.

"I've work." Utakata said simply.

"But… you said you were off." Bianca said, her eyes narrowing.

"Yeah, but something came up, I'll be going in for a little while, but I'll be back early." He said with a sigh.

Nico looked disappointed for a bit until a silver blur rushed into the room and ran straight into Bianca, knocking her back on the bed.

"Volpe." She said with a soft smile as the fox licked her nose.

"He was worried about you." Nico explained, "he's been here since you got back he only left to go out and pee."

"Hey, boy." She said, stroking his ear happily, "I'm fine, there's no need for you to worry."

The fox yipped happily and licked at her cheek causing a soft giggle to come from the girl. Nico laughed happily with her, causing the fox to jump to him. Utakata smiled from the side, Bianca managed to catch a look on his face, a wishful, almost longing look as he watched the small interaction.

Before she could say anything, he had already left the room. Bianca wanted answers but decided to leave it for now.

Bianca decided to take a walk with Volpe, leaving Nico to tell Utakata where she had gone. The fox never wore a leash when they left the house, they didn't even get him a collar, for some reason, Utakata was against it. Choosing to let him roam free.

A few neighbours had complained, but Utakata had some strong words with them and they stopped complaining, Bianca never did find out what he had said to them. She walked through the neighbourhood, dozens of identical houses lined each side of her, it was so boring. So, she made her way to the park, it wasn't particularly big, a couple dozen trees stretching around a pond with a children's play park a stones throw away from the pond.

Most days, she and Nico would take Volpe here and play fetch with him, or simply just wander around the park with the fox. There weren't many kids living here, and the few that did avoided the di Angelo's like the plague so most days the park was empty.

Bianca moved to the swing set and just sat down. Volpe looked at her worriedly, before rushing off to find a stick to play fetch. She took a deep breath and stood up, following after the fox and making sure he didn't wonder too far. As she passed the pond she saw movement in its crystal-clear waters.

She looked into the depths and saw three girls sitting at the bottom, she gasped, they must be drowning. Their faces were tinted blue from the lack of oxygen and their hands were trapped in some of the plants at the bottom that looked vaguely like seaweed.

She looked at the water, it looked surprisingly deep, at least three meters. She cast her jacket to the side and hopped into the water, before seeming to realise something very important… she couldn't swim. She saw the three girls turn to look at her, confusion on their faces, before annoyance passed their faces, one gurgled something to the others and they shrugged to her.

Bianca struggled desperately, righting herself and gasping for oxygen, water was in her eyes the world become a blurry pallet of colour. She struggled desperately to get back to the shore, kicking desperately but getting nowhere.

She felt something in her arms and she was dragged off to the shore, she pulled herself out of the water, gasping for breath and holding her chest. A warm tongue licked her nose and she looked up to find Volpe staring at her.

"Volpe?" She asked, "you saved me?" she took note of his wet fur, how had the tiny fox managed to drag her all the way to shore?

"He's a cute little thing." A girl's voice said, she looked up and realised that Volpe was sitting in someone's lap. It was one of the girls at the bottom of the pond, up close she realised that the blue tint she saw was actually her skin, it was very lightly tinted blue. She had brown hair and watery blue eyes. She was petting Volpe and smiling lightly.

"What? But – you were drowning!" Bianca said, sitting up and panting for air.

"Drowning?" The girl giggled to herself, "no, how would I drown."

"But, you were at the bottom of the pond." Bianca said, "and the others." She gasped and turned back to the water, her eyes fell on the two other girls, they both turned to her and waved dismissively.

"Yeah, my sisters and I are braiding some reeds. Lots of fun, shame I don't grow any here, sure the lilies are nice, but I'm thinking I need something more… bigger." She giggled, "what do you think?"

"How are they? But you…" Bianca asked, confusion gripping her face, "I've gone insane."

The girl giggled once more, "I hope not, you lot aren't any fun when you go insane. Anyway, this little fella his name is Volpe?"

"Yeah." Bianca asked, still sounding dazed, "wait, what do you mean 'your lot'?"

"Half-bloods of course." She giggled, "sorry, where are my manners, I'm Lily." She raised her hand in greeting.

"Umm, Bianca." Bianca shook her hand awkwardly, her mind wondering on what the girl had said, half-blood? Half Italian? but that wasn't that obvious, how had the girl known that, Bianca herself didn't even know her father, or where he came from.

"Well, umm Bianca." Lily said cheekily, "what were you doing in my pond?"

"I thought you were drowning." Bianca said, "your friends how are they not-"

"Oh, we're naiads." She said, "you must be new to this, how old are you?"

"Fourteen…" The word naiad sounded familiar, she racked her brains trying to remember from where.

"Hmm," she hummed thoughtfully, "that's pretty old to not know much."

"Know what?" Bianca asked angrily, "what am I supposed to know?"

"What are you supposed to know?" The girls sounded taken aback, "oh, oh!" She gave Bianca a pitying glance, "you don't know."

"What are you talking about?"

"Sorry," she was contemplating something, a look of concentration on her face she hummed for a moment, "do you have any relatives? Mom? Dad?"

"No," she said, looking at Volpe, the naiad's smile shrank slightly, "but I do have an older brother." She frowned, "half-brother."

The girl bit her lip and stared at the fox in her lap, "I don't think I'm the best person to give this talk to you, maybe-"

"Bianca!" Both girls jumped at the name being called, they turned to the entrance of the park and found the owner. Utakata wandered into the park, searching for Bianca, his eyes reached the two of them in a matter of seconds. He took one look at the naiad and frowned before looking to his sister.

"U-Utakata?" Bianca said in confusion, "what are you doing here?"

"I was just looking for you," he rushes over and wraps an arm around her, "your soaking, what happened?"

"Umm, I, uh, tried to save someone from drowning." She admitted.

"What? Who?" He asked in worry, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, it's size almost looking like a cape on her small frame, without it, his arms were exposed, faint white scars trailing up them.

"Lily, but she wasn't drowning, she…" Bianca looked to where the girl had been, emphasis on the 'had'.

"Who's Lily?" He asked.

"She was right… here…" Bianca said, "she must have gone back to the water."

Utakata followed her as she stumbled to the edge of the water and found… nothing.

"What's going on?" She muttered to herself, confusion turning to fear.

"Bianca." Utakata said, gently taking her shoulders, "you've had a stressful day," standing her up and leading her out of the park, "so, let's go home, okay?"

"I'm not crazy." She said, pushing him away.

"I'm not… that's not what I said." Utakata tried, "look, let's just go home, we'll-"

"No!" Bianca was suddenly angry, Utakata was lying to her, there was something going on, thinking back to the words he had said to that mysterious voice earlier, he knew what was going on. "You know what's going on." She said.

"Bianca-"

"No, you tell me what's going on, who were you talking to this morning? Why are we suddenly moving and what happened at the school?"

"Now's not the time." Utakata said, trying to placate her, his eyes darted around, Volpe growled lightly, but did nothing.

"Now is the time! Tell me what's going on! What are you hiding from me?"

The world darkened, the shadows lengthened, writhing around the park, like they had in the classroom.

"Bianca!" Utakata's called out, glancing around him warily, "calm down!"

"No, tell me what's going on!" She said, a tendril of shadow shot forward towards her brother, but before they could do whatever they had done to her teacher, his hand whipped out and… caught it.

"Bianca, you need to calm down." His voice was different, he wasn't angry, or worried, he was commanding, in charge. Staring at him, she felt all the anger turn to fear, a primal instinct warning her to listen to him. "I'll tell you what's going on when we get back to the house, now hurry, before-" His head cocked to the side as he spotted something, he groaned to himself, "too late."

Bianca suddenly seemed to realise what had happened, what had nearly happened, if her memory was right, the shadow had killed the teacher, she had been ready to do that to her brother. Regret burned within her, but before she could say anything in apology, her brother ran to her, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground.

There was a thud and a golden spear jutted out of the ground where she had been standing.

"Why now?" She heard Utakata mutter, he took a deep breath and then sighed deeply. He turned his right-hand palm down and his eyes scrunched in focus. His shadow distorted, darkening somehow before something flew from it into his hand. It took a moment for Bianca to realise what it was, a sword, a short sword so black it was hard to discern from the shadows.

"What's going on?" She asked worriedly.

Utakata sighed, his eyes darting around, "you remember your teacher?" She nodded, even though his eyes weren't on her he seemed to see her nod, "well, we're about to meet his family."

(Pennsylvania)

Four pairs of eyes were glued to the smoke, all silently wondering what was going to be revealed, when they found out, they were mildly surprised.

"Some books and a box?" Anko asked after a while.

The four of them deflated slightly, it seemed like a bit of a let-down in the end. Indeed, out of the mask popped three thick notebooks, each brimming with pages, it was obvious they were well looked at. The covers were worn down and there were dog ears on the pages sticking out, they were all orange, two looked old, while the third seemed much younger, the orange not so dull.

The other object was a box. It looked like a music box, made of a dark wood, with a metal frame going around the sides, for some reason, it seemed to lock the sides in place, making it unable to open. There were countless seals covering it, several random carvings on it, probably hiding more seals like the mask had. There was what looked like a lock on the front, but there was no hole, instead there was just the kanji for nine carved into the metal. On the top it was blank, with the exception of three large concentric circles with three comas on each separated evenly around the circle.

Anko grabbed one of the books and opened it randomly, she stared for a moment before closing it and looking down.

"What is it?" Yugao asked.

"It's a journal." Anko replied.

They were all silent for a moment before Zoe decided to speak, "why hath thou closet thy book?"

The others looked at her in shock, before Anko replied, "that would be a breach of his privacy."

"What didst thou believe thy art partaking in? I believed that thou would agree to search for clues partaking in thy brother's magic." Zoe replied.

"But that's personal, we didn't even know these existed, and from the looks of it they're old." Yugao said, "he put a lot of effort into hiding these for a long time, there are probably very personal things written in here."

"Tis true, but thou agreed that it may lead to a path to his recovery." Zoe replied coolly.

"But-"

"She's right." Kurenai said, the other two looked in shock.

"Kurenai?" Anko asked.

"There's a high chance that he wrote down the theories for his jutsu in these books, maybe there's a way to track him down or something. We can't just let an opportunity like that slip between our fingers."

"Do we have any right to do this though?" Yugao asked.

"No, we don't." Kurenai replied, "but we will, it is necessary."

They were silent for a moment before Yugao swallowed and nodded, they all turned to Anko, who clutched the books in her hands to her chest.

"No, we aren't going to read through his personal thoughts, his secrets." She said, "we've done enough damage."

"But we might have a chance for finding him." Yugao said, "he might have made notes about his seals, his jutsu. If there's a chance, we need to take it."

Anko looked at the books in her hands and then back to the others, she took a deep breath before she gained a look of acceptance. "Fine, but, only one of us, and they must be sworn to silence." She said, her eyes daring the others to defy her, "this is his private thoughts, we shouldn't be able to just read through them like a novel, we keep the information to one person, nothing important gets shared."

The other three shared a look, before they nodded, "that is a good idea." Yugao said.

They seemed in agreement until Kurenai asked the important question. "Right, now who will read them?" They each glanced among each other, they were silent for a minute, none daring to volunteer.

"I think I should be the one." Yugao said, "I'm his Godmother, well…" She looked up to the sky where the moon would be.

"No, I was his teacher, I should be the one." Kurenai said.

"No!" Anko said, "neither of your positions are above mine, I should-"

"No." Zoe said, turning the attention to her, "we shalt argue about thy books later, we still hath more to look at." She gestured to the box that was just sitting their innocently.

They admired it, passing it between them, Yugao and Kurenai were both trying to figure out the seals, while Zoe and Anko tried to figure out the contents of the box.

"It's way above my area of expertise." Yugao said, "I can't even begin to unravel this."

"From what I can see, it is several seals layered upon each other whilst somehow not interacting, to make it even more complicated, it looks like there are nine separate locks if those circles at the top are any indication."

"What do you mean?" Anko asked.

"You see the comas on each circle?" They nodded, "they are what each layer leads to but all of them separate in the circle, I don't know how he did it." She admitted.

"Doest thou have any notion to what thy brother might conceal in thy box?"

"Not a clue, it could be anything, but, if we're going by the pattern here, it would seem the jinchuuriki know."

"What?" Zoe asked.

"Nine seals, one for each of them, maybe they know how to open it." Yugao said, catching on to what Kurenai was saying.

"So, we just need to get in contact with them." Anko said.

"Yeah," Yugao said.

"Thy timing couldn't be worse, with thy camps border so frail, contact shouldn't be attempted, t'would be bad to call at an inopportune moment."

"Yeah, we'll call another time then. For now, should we decide who reads the books?" Kurenai asked.

"We shalt all draweth straws." Zoe said.

"You're not in the running Zoe." Anko said, an uncomfortable look on her face.

"What? Why? Thou doth not believe I shalt not judge him by his thoughts?" Zoe asked anger clear on her face. "Thou wouldst be biased, I hath not known him, without him being vulpine at least."

"It's not that." Anko said, putting her hands up to placate the irate hunter, "it's… their written in Kanji, unless you've taken a course in Japanese…"

"Oh," Zoe blushed, "I hath not considered that." They were all silent for a while until Zoe composed herself and spoke again, "I shalt gather reeds from a stream, if not, I shalt find long grass. I'll ensure thou be fair." She disappeared into the forest and return a few minutes later, three stems sticking out of her closed fist.

"Kurenai, you shalt go first." Zoe announced, the red eyed woman grabbed the first piece.

"Anko," the purple haired girl moved forward and grabbed the next piece, it looked a little smaller than Kurenai's, her shoulders slumped.

"Yugao." The final girl approached and pulled the last reed, this one was defiantly the longest.

She smiled slightly, before it turned to a grimace when Anko grabbed her shoulder roughly.

"Take the oath." Anko said, firmly.

"I swear on the Styx not to reveal what's in the books, unless it directly helps our quest." Thunder echoed the oath.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry for not uploading in a while, I've been swamped with work, and I've been trying to do this chapter, I've kept trying to redo it again and again, it just feels wrong, but I just can't seem to get it right**

Camp felt different, there was something wrong, there was an air of danger now. No one was playing volleyball in the sandpit, counsellors and satyrs were stockpiling weapons in the tool shed. Dryads armed with bows and arrows talked nervously at the edge of the woods. The forest looked sickly, the grass in the meadow was pale yellow, and the fire marks on Half-Blood Hill stood out like ugly scars.

Yagura was right, once they had left the hill and entered the camp, both Whiskers and Anchor snapped out of their trance and shivered.

"Whiskers." Annabeth said, her voice wobbled a bit before she gained control again, "what happened?"

"I… don't know." The fox replied, Anchor shrugged his shoulders at Percy when he looked at him, "it was like… with Bandit last year… when we touched… but… weaker."

Annabeth frowned, she looked to Roshi who sighed to himself, "I don't know what it was, but I can guess. It's not good."

"Tell me." Annabeth demanded.

Roshi stroked his beard, eyeing both Annabeth and then her fox, his eyes were old, too old for someone as young as him, "I'll wait until I'm sure, I don't want to worry you unnecessarily." See, he could have said that before saying something worrying like 'it's not good'.

"But-"

"Not now." Roshi said in a firm tone, "we have a new camper by the looks of it." He eyed the fox in Percy's arms who squirmed at his gaze. He took a deep breath, before looking to Annabeth, "go to Chiron, hurry though, we'll talk after." He then turned to Percy, his eyes narrowing, "you too."

With that, the son of Athena walked away, heading to the Athena cabin silently. He spared one last glance backwords before entering the cabin, his gaze fell on Percy and Anchor, he glared at Percy before disappearing into the cabin. After that strange conversation, they continued on to the Big House.

As they made their way through camp, nobody stopped to talk, nobody said, "Welcome back." No one even smiled at the sight of a familiar face. Some did do a double take when they saw Tyson, but most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties, running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheels.

Not that the mood affected Tyson, he stared with his eye at everything asking Percy about anything that caught it.

"Whasthat!" he gasped.

"The stables for pegasi," Percy replied. "The winged horses."

"Whasthat!"

"Um... those are the toilets."

"Whasthat!"

"The cabins for the campers. If they don't know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin, that brown one over there, until you're determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom's group."

He looked at Percy in awe. "You... have a cabin?"

"Number three." He said, pointing to a low grey building made of sea stone, a small grin washed over his face, it seemed unchanged from last summer.

"You live with friends in the cabin?"

"Yeah, Yagura, the girl with the green hair." Percy said.

"Is she… friend?" He asked a frown scrunching up on his face.

"Yeah, she's my sister – half-sister – Poseidon's her dad too." Percy said, as they walked Tyson's face scrunched up like he was solving the most complicated math problem in the world. Before he could say anymore, they had reached the Big House. Chiron was in his apartment, listening to his favourite 1960s lounge music while he packed his saddlebags.

As soon as they saw him, Tyson froze, any thoughts of solving his math problem disappeared. "Pony!" he cried in total rapture.

Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon?"

Annabeth ran up and hugged him. "Chiron, what's happening? You're not... leaving?" Her voice was shaky. Chiron was like a second father to her. Whiskers sat on her shoulder but hopped up to Chiron's back while he hugged Annabeth.

Chiron ruffled Annabeth's hair and gave her a kindly smile, his other hand stretched around and pet Whiskers who leaned into it like a cat. "Hello, child. Whiskers, you're looking good. And Percy, my goodness. You've grown over the year! Is that another fox? Well, that's good news."

Percy audibly swallowed. "You... you are..."

"Fired." Chiron's eyes glinted with dark humour. "Ah, well, someone had to take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he'd created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone."

"Besides himself, you mean," Percy growled out, Anchor copied him, and started growling, even though he didn't know why. Chiron eyed the fox carefully, a strange gleam in his eye.

"But this is crazy!" Annabeth cried, snapping the centaur out of his stupor. "Chiron, you couldn't have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia's tree!"

"Nevertheless," Chiron sighed, "some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" Percy asked.

Chiron's face darkened. He stuffed a Latin-English dictionary into his saddlebag while the Frank Sinatra music oozed from his boom box.

Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron's flank but was afraid to come closer. "Pony?"

Chiron sniffed. "My dear young Cyclops! I am a centaur."

"Chiron," Percy said, interrupting what was sure to be an amusing if not one-sided argument. "What about the tree? What happened?"

He shook his head sadly. "The poison used on Thalia's pine is something from the Underworld, Percy. Some venom even I have never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus."

"Then we know who's responsible. Kro-"

"Do not invoke the titan lord's name, Percy. Especially not here, not now."

"But last summer he tried to cause a civil war in Olympus! This has to be his idea. He'd get Luke to do it, that traitor." Anchor yipped in agreement, even if he didn't really know what was going on.

"Perhaps," Chiron said. "But I fear I am being held responsible because I did not prevent it and I cannot cure it. The tree has only a few weeks of life left unless..."

"Unless what?" Annabeth asked.

"No," Chiron said. "A foolish thought. The whole valley is feeling the shock of the poison. The magical borders are deteriorating. The camp itself is dying. Only one source of magic would be strong enough to reverse the poison, and it was lost centuries ago."

"What is it?" Percy asked in desperation. "We'll go find it!"

Chiron closed his saddlebag. He pressed the stop button on his boom box. Then he turned and rested his hand on Percy's shoulder, looking him in the eyes. "Percy, you must promise me that you will not act rashly. I told your mother I did not want you to come here at all this summer. It's much too dangerous. But now that you are here, stay here. Train hard. Learn to fight. But do not leave."

"Why?" Percy asked. "I want to do something! I can't just let the borders fail. The whole camp will be-"

"Overrun by monsters," Chiron said. "Yes, I fear so. But you must not let yourself be baited into hasty action! This could be a trap of the titan lord. Remember last summer! He almost took your life."

Annabeth was trying hard not to cry. Chiron brushed a tear from her cheek. "Stay with Percy, child," he told her. "Keep him safe. The prophecy, remember it!"

"I—I will."

"Um..." Percy said, interrupting them. "Would this be the super-dangerous prophecy that has me in it, but the gods have forbidden you to tell me about?"

Nobody answered, well Anchor did, but he was also trying to bite his own tail, so he might not be the one holding the answers.

"Right," Percy muttered, completely ignoring the fox. "Just checking."

"Chiron..." Annabeth said. "You told me the gods made you immortal only so long as you were needed to train heroes. If they dismiss you from camp-"

"Swear you will do your best to keep Percy from danger," he insisted. "Swear upon the River Styx."

"I-I swear it upon the River Styx," Annabeth said.

Thunder rumbled outside.

"Very well," Chiron said. He seemed to relax just a little. "Perhaps my name will be cleared, and I shall return. Until then, I go to visit my wild kinsmen in the Everglades. It's possible they know of some cure for the poisoned tree that I have forgotten. In any event, I will stay in exile until this matter is resolved... one way or another."

Annabeth stifled a sob. Chiron patted her shoulder awkwardly. "There, now, child. I must entrust your safety to Mr. D and the new activities director. We must hope... well, perhaps they won't destroy the camp quite as quickly as I fear."

"Who is this Tantalus guy, anyway?" Percy asked angrily. "Where does he get off taking your job?"

A conch horn blew across the valley.

"Go," Chiron said. "You will meet him at the pavilion. I will contact your mother, Percy, and let her know you're safe. No doubt she'll be worried by now. Just remember my warning! You are in grave danger. Do not think for a moment that the titan lord has forgotten you! Also, you should probably get ready for Yagura and her siblings to be mad at you pretty quickly."

"Wait, what?" Percy asked, but it was too late, Chiron was already cantering off down the hill.

Tyson called after him, "Pony! Don't go!"

Tyson started bawling almost as bad as Annabeth. Percy tried to tell them that things would be okay, but he didn't sound like he even believed it himself.

The sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins. Percy, and the gang were standing in the shadow of a marble column and watched the other campers file in.

Annabeth was still pretty shaken up, but she promised she'd talk to us later. Then she went off to join her siblings from the Athena cabin, since she was the councillor. She may not have been the oldest, but she'd been at camp more summers than just about anybody. You could tell that by looking at her camp necklace, one bead for every summer, and Annabeth had six.

No one dared to question her right to lead the line.

Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin.

After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin, six guys and Hana, led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers' mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmith forge all day. He was nice enough once you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf.

The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. There were clearly a few people missing, notably from the jinchuuriki, both Fu and Yagura were missing, they must be at the border.

Naiads came up from the canoe lake, and dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs.

After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Their new leaders, Travis and Connor Stoll a pair of troublemakers who could be mistaken for twins since they looked so much alike. They were both tall and skinny, with mops of brown hair that hung in their eyes. They wore orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts untucked over baggy shorts, and they had those elfish features all Hermes's kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you—like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt.

As soon as the last campers had filed in, Percy brought Tyson into the middle of the pavilion. Conversations faltered, and heads turned. "Who invited that?" somebody at the Apollo table murmured.

Percy glared at the table but didn't find the culprit.

At the head table, a bored voice spoke up, "Well, well, if it isn't Peter Johnson. My millennium is complete."

The demi-god scowled. "Percy Jackson... sir."

Mr. D sipped his Diet Coke. "Yes. Well, as you young people say these days: Whatever." Behind him, a nervous-looking satyr was peeling the skins off grapes and handing them to Mr. D, one at a time.

Next to him, where Chiron usually sat (or stood, in centaur form), was someone new, a pale, horribly thin man in a threadbare orange prisoner's jump-suit. The number over his pocket read 0001. He had blue shadows under his eyes, dirty fingernails, and badly cut grey hair, like his last haircut had been done with a weed whacker. One look into his eyes showed he wasn't exactly all there, anger, frustration and hunger seemed to be aimed at whoever decided to go into a staring contest with him.

"This boy," Dionysus turned to the man, "you need to watch. Poseidon's child, you know."

"Ah!" the prisoner said. "That one."

"I am Tantalus," the prisoner said, smiling coldly. "On special assignment here until, well, until my Lord Dionysus decides otherwise. And you, Perseus Jackson, I do expect you to refrain from causing any more trouble."

"Trouble?" Percy spoke in the verbal representation of a scowl.

Dionysus snapped his fingers and newspaper appeared on the table, the front page of the New York Post, there was a yearbook picture of Percy from Meriwether Prep.

"Yes, trouble," Tantalus said with satisfaction. "You caused plenty of it last summer, I understand."

Percy grit his teeth biting back a retort, his fists were clenched and he scowled.

A satyr inched forward nervously and set a plate of barbecue in front of Tantalus. The new activities director licked his lips. He looked at his empty goblet and said, "Root beer. Barq's special stock. 1967."

After the glass filled itself with the frothy liquid, the new director eyed it carefully, he slowly raised his hand to the glass like it would vanish if he moved to quickly.

"Go on, then, old fellow," Dionysus said, a strange sparkle in his eyes. "Perhaps now it will work."

Tantalus grabbed for the glass, but it scooted away before he could touch it. A few drops of root beer spilled, and Tantalus tried to dab them up with his fingers, but the drops rolled away like quicksilver before he could touch them. He growled and turned toward the plate of barbecue. He picked up a fork and tried to stab a piece of brisket, but the plate skittered down the table and flew off the end, straight into the coals of the brazier.

"Blast!" Tantalus muttered.

"Ah, well," Dionysus said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "Perhaps a few more days. Believe me, old chap, working at this camp will be torture enough. I'm sure your old curse will fade eventually."

"Eventually," muttered Tantalus, staring at Dionysus's Diet Coke. "Do you have any idea how dry one's throat gets after three thousand years?"

"You're that spirit from the Fields of Punishment," Percy said. "The one who stands in the lake with the fruit tree hanging over you, but you can't eat or drink."

Tantalus sneered at the demi-god. "A real scholar, aren't you, boy?"

"You must've done something really horrible when you were alive," Percy said, sounding slightly impressed. "What was it?"

Tantalus's eyes narrowed into slits. Behind him, the satyrs were shaking their heads vigorously, trying to warn the foolish son of Poseidon.

"I'll be watching you, Percy Jackson," Tantalus said. "I don't want any problems at my camp."

"Your camp has problems already... sir."

"Oh, go sit down, Johnson," Dionysus sighed. "I believe that table over there is yours, the empty one, looks like your sister isn't in the mood to deal with you tonight"

Percy's face reddened, but he didn't say anything to the god. "Come on, Tyson."

"Oh, no," Tantalus said. "The monster stays here. We must decide what to do with it."

"Him," Percy snapped angrily. "His name is Tyson."

The tortured soul raised an eyebrow.

"Tyson helped the camp," Percy insisted. "He pounded one of the bulls. Otherwise they would've burned down this whole place."

"Yes," Tantalus sighed, "and what a pity that would've been." Dionysus snickered. "Leave us," Tantalus ordered, "while we decide this creature's fate."

Tyson looked at Percy with fear in his one big eye. "I'll be right over here, big guy," the demi-god promised. "Don't worry. We'll find you a good place to sleep tonight."

Tyson nodded. "I believe you. You are my friend."

Percy sighed and looked down at the little fox in his arms, "just you and me buddy." He moved to the table but was stopped again by the activities director.

"No, leave your pet here, we've still to decide what to do with it." This time, the entire pavilion broke into whispered talk, until, in unison, Clarisse and Annabeth stood, their fox's sitting at their feet.

Before either could get a word in, someone else decided to speak on Percy's behalf, "really?" A soft voice purred out, from the Aphrodite table, "because the way I see it, he has more right to a place in camp than you." Yugito said with a smirk at the new councillor.

Dionysus sighed and took a sip of his coke, he gave it a glance, his thoughts clear, 'if there was ever a time for me to have alcohol, this is it,' as if he already knew the headache this would cause him.

Tantalus glared at her, his face reddened in anger and he looked like he was trying very hard not to kill her, not that he ever could. "What is your name?" He finally spat out.

"Yugito, daughter of Aphrodite." She purred out again.

A strange gleam appeared in Tantalus's eye. "So, you're one of them, aren't you?" He asked, a small grin growing on a face that, by the looks of it, wasn't exactly used to the expression.

Yugito's face got serious and she scowled at the man, around the pavilion, a few other faces joined her in scowling. "I'm not sure, what 'them' would you be referring to?" She asked, calmly, though by the looks of it, she already knew.

"You're one of the jinchuuriki, aren't you?" He smirked like he'd won the lottery.

The entire pavilion was silent, no one moved, no one knew what was so special about the 'jinchuuriki' but they were different, there was just something about them. Add in the fact that there were two big three kids and the others had strange abilities that no demi-god had ever been shown to have and the entire camp was curious. Of course, no one had actually asked what it was, even though there were gossipers at camp, there was also an understanding, very few demi-gods have nice childhoods, and even fewer want to talk about them.

"I am." There was now a dangerous tone to her voice which, of course, Tantalus ignored.

He laughed like he found the blonde hilarious, "well, it seems that Jackson wasn't the only one to bring a monster to camp after all." He said eyeing Tyson with a grin.

The pavilion was silent for a moment, before Tantalus cackled to himself, the satyr's started backing away from the man, and Dionysus opened what looked like a phone book with Greek letters on the front.

"I don't know what you think you know," Yugito was calm, her voice strong and unwavering, "but if I were you, I would make sure that I don't let other people come to your foolish conclusions."

Tantalus laughed again, "no, little girl, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, you and your little friends are hos-" he didn't get any further as he found himself on his lying on his back a few feet from the table. He wheezed and gurgled trying to catch his breath, Yugito sat on the table, standing beside his plate.

Dionysus grunted and muttered, "get off the table." She gave him a look and hoped down, he muttered something about demi-gods having no manners.

"Now, Tantalus," Yugito said in a low voice, "I know you know nothing about us, and what we are." She slowly weaved her way over to the man, who was trying to back away from the girl, but backing himself into one of the pillars. "You obviously know nothing about us."

He trembled as she came closer, as she approached the dead man, the entire pavilion seemed to heat up, the air becoming uncomfortably warm to those not immune to heat. She stopped right in front of the former king before crouching down beside him, his breath came in gasps, sweat rolling off him in waves.

"I know this," her voice lowered, but still travelled across the silent pavilion, "because if you knew the slightest bit of truth about us." She leaned down so her mouth was inches from his ear, her voice lowered so that only Tantalus and those with enhanced godly hearing could hear, "you would have been too scared to speak about us."

Yugito stood and walked back to her seat, as she passed Percy, she stopped and stole a glance at the fox. A smile appeared on her face and she brought here hand to the fox's head, scratching behind his ears, making him… purr? He leaned into her hand and smiled contently.

Then, she moved back to the Aphrodite table, most of her siblings just stared at her in astonishment, hell most of the campers were staring at her in shock. Dionysus sighed before waving his hand, Tantalus's chair sat back up, the plate's, cup and cutlery floated back to their places.

The pavilion was silent, no one moved, they all just stared between the demi-goddess and the undead king. Finally, Dionysus spoke up, breaking the tense atmosphere, "Johnson, I think I told you to sit down, stop gawking at Yvonne."

Percy jumped and blushed a bit, before rushing back to his table. A wood nymph brought him a plate of Olympian olive-and-pepperoni pizza, but he didn't feel too hungry. She came around a few minutes later with another plate for Anchor, who she grinned at happily and pet him as she left.

When it came his turn to sacrifice some of the meal, he took the dinner up to the bronze brazier and scraped part of it into the flames.

"Poseidon," he murmured, "accept my offering." The smoke drifted up with the salty scent of the sea. He went back to his seat and sighed, half-heartedly tearing into the pizza, though he was pretty hungry, he just couldn't bring himself to eat too much. With a small grin, he gave the rest to the fox in his lap, who had already finished his and happily munched on Percy's.

After they were finished, Tantalus had one of the satyrs blow the conch horn to get everyone's attention for announcements.

The new director stood up, still shaking slightly from earlier, "Well," Tantalus said, after everyone stopped talking, false confidence crossing his features, too bad for him, he couldn't hide the glances he shot to a certain daughter of Aphrodite, who gazed at him with a smirk. "A-another fine meal! Or so I am told." He stopped talking for a moment, clenching his eyes shut for a second.

"And here on my first day of authority," he said, his confidence seeming to come back, "I'd like to say what a pleasant form of punishment it is to be here. Over the course of the summer, I hope to torture, err, interact with each and every one of you children. You all look good enough to eat."

Dionysus clapped politely, causing some applause from the satyrs, who sent nervous looks to the god. Tyson still stood at the head table, with an uncomfortable, he tried to move to the background, but Tantalus kept pulling him back.

"And now some changes!" Tantalus gave the campers a crooked smile. "We are reinstituting the chariot races!"

Murmuring broke out at all the tables. Some were excited, scared, or just in disbelief. The jinchuuriki all shared a look between one another, to everyone else, they were completely unreadable.

"Now I know," Tantalus continued, raising his voice, "that these races were discontinued some years ago due to, ah, technical problems."

"Three deaths and twenty-six mutilations," someone at the Apollo table called out.

"Yes, yes!" Tantalus said. "But I know that you will all join me in welcoming the return of this camp tradition. Golden laurels will go to the winning charioteers each month. Teams may register in the morning! The first race will be held in three day's time. We will release you from most of your regular activities to prepare your chariots and choose your horses. Oh, and did I mention, the victorious team's cabin will have no chores for the month in which they win?"

The kids exploded with excited chatter, the prospect of no chores was enough to get any of the campers to do what you want them to do. Yugito looked ready to stand up again, but Roshi sent her a look, and she backed down. Instead of her standing, it was actually Clarisse who objected to this.

"But, sir!" She said looking nervous, but stood to speak from the Ares table, to her left, Bandit sat, glaring at Tantalus. "What about patrol duty? I mean, if we drop every-thing to ready our chariots-"

"Ah, the hero of the day," Tantalus exclaimed. "Brave Clarisse, who single-handedly bested the bronze bulls!"

Clarisse blinked, then blushed. "Um, I didn't-"

"And modest, too." Tantalus grinned. "Not to worry, my dear! This is a summer camp. We are here to enjoy our-selves, yes?"

"But-"

"We'll take care of the border." Roshi called out to the camp, even Tantalus looked surprised and was about to say something until the son of Athena looked at him, "if that will be alright, director." The man ignored him, turning away, but not giving an answer, a few campers grinned.

"Now," Tantalus said, "before we proceed to the campfire and sing-along, one slight housekeeping issue. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase have seen fit, for some reason, to bring this here." Tantalus waved a hand toward Tyson. He stole a quick glance at Anchor who was sitting in Percy's lap, and then to Yugito who sent a glare to him. "Now, of course," he said, "Cyclopes have a reputation for being bloodthirsty monsters with a very small brain capacity. Under normal circumstances, I would release this beast into the woods and have you hunt it down with torches and pointed sticks. But who knows? Perhaps this Cyclops is not as horrible as most of its brethren. Until it proves worthy of destruction, we need a place to keep it! I've thought about the stables, but that will make the horses nervous. Hermes's cabin, possibly?"

Silence at the Hermes table. Travis and Connor Stoll developed a sudden interest in the tablecloth. The Hermes cabin was always full to bursting, there was no way they could take in the six-foot-three Cyclops.

"Come now," Tantalus chided. "The monster may be able to do some menial chores. Any suggestions as to where such a beast should be kennelled?"

Suddenly everybody gasped.

Tantalus scooted away from Tyson in surprise, they all stared in disbelief at the brilliant green light, a dazzling holographic image that had appeared above Tyson's head. Swirling over Tyson was a glowing green trident, there was a moment of awed silence.

Being claimed was a rare event. Some campers waited in vain for it their whole lives. After the silence the campers followed Tantalus's lead, and roared with laughter. "Well! I think we know where to put the beast now. By the gods, I can see the family resemblance!"

Everybody laughed except Annabeth and a few of my other friends, as well as the jinchuuriki who were looking surprised.

Tyson didn't seem to notice the laughter, he was mystified, trying to swat the glowing trident that was now fading over his head.

The laughter continued, until two new figures appeared at the end of the pavilion, at first no one really noticed, but then the world seemed to weigh down on the campers. The air became humid until it felt like they were in a rainforest, around the tables, all the drinks rose from their cups, slightly. It was at this point people started caring about who was glaring at them.

Eventually it was only Tantalus laughing, when his laughter died down he noticed the new arrival. "You're a bit late for-"

"Yugito, B, you're up," Yagura said, the two jinchuuriki stood and left the pavilion without a word.

"Listen here young lady-"

"Hey big guy." Yagura said, ignoring the rapidly reddening man and walking over to the cyclops standing looking above his head as the last of the symbol disappeared. He turned to her and looked confused. "I'm Yagura, daughter of Poseidon, and… your sister now."

Tyson's eye widened for a moment before he seemed to realise something, "you are Percy's sister?"

"Yup, and you're his brother." She said with a smile.

He grinned like it was Christmas and cheered to himself, not caring that the entire camp was watching.

"Now see here!" Tantalus yelled, "you can't just barge into my camp and-"

Yagura glared at him, "silence." She commanded, the man didn't listen.

"You can't tell me-"

This time she didn't take no for an answer, she didn't answer per say, she just glared at him with such intensity that he shut up, "that was not a request." She said. As the entire camp watched, she stood and stared at him intensely, her skin lost its pale tone and darkened to a light green tint. Her back bulged under her shirt like there was something beneath it, now she kind of looked like a naiad, but… different.

Around the pavilion, satyr's, naiad's and nymph's gasped in shock. Yagura looked surprised for a minute before she scrunched her forehead up a little, it was like a breath of the wild, around the pavilion the nature spirts sighed in content, and Yagura went back to normal. Everyone looked at her in awe, the other jinchuuriki looked at her with slight pity in their eyes.

Yagura grabbed one of Tyson's hands and led him away from the pavilion, stopping for Tyson to give Percy a wave goodbye.

(Los Angeles)

Bianca was terrified, what the hell was going on? She was about to voice this question when her brother turned to her and raised his sword. He lunged forward and threw her to the side and hi blade slid through the man who had tried to stab her.

Bianca gasped as she watched him fall to the ground, when he hit it, his body exploded and flowed into the blade, dust falling to the floor. Utakata grunted and raised his pipe to his lips, with a puff, shadows bubbled out and disappeared into the forest.

Utakata turned to his sister, "grab Volpe." He said, before turning away and disappearing into the shadow of a tree.

Bianca stared at where her brother had been for a moment before the words resonated with her. She turned to where the fox had been only to see him running into the forest, "Volpe!" She yelled out, gaining his attention. He turned back, and she ran over to him, he barked at her and jumped into her arms. "What the hell is going on?" she asked the fox, hoping he somehow had an answer.

Volpe growled and then hoped out of her arms, over her shoulder and landed on a man with one eye. He was wearing a golden and white pinstriped suit with an overcoat made of what looked like pigeon feathers. He was swatting at Volpe with his golden spear, but the fox was moving quick enough to dodge.

"Stupid mutt." He muttered, trying to hit the fox again.

The fox just yipped back at him and ran between his legs before hopping up onto his back and biting into his collar bone.

"Argh!" The man howled in pain and backed up into a tree, slamming the fox into the tree, Volpe yipped in pain and fell to the ground. "Got you now!" He said with a grin and raised his spear to strike down.

"No!" Bianca yelled, moving forward with her hands outstretched. Around them, the world twisted, the shadow of the tree darkened, and the monsters left foot, which had previously been within the shadow of the tree, seemed to sink into it.

He fell forward and the spear dug into the tree. He looked down in terror, his leg no knee deep in the ground. "Stop! No!" He yelled at Bianca.

Volpe jumped to the monster's shoulder and used it to bounce up to Bianca's shoulder. Bianca stared in shock, before looking at her hands in awe.

"Free me!" The monster yelled, breaking Bianca out of her stupor, his leg up to his mid-thigh was sunk into the ground and more just kept disappearing. "Please, free me!"

Before Bianca could say anything, Utakata appeared behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned to face him, fear and confusion on her face. He looked sadly into her eyes and then turned to the monster.

He threw his sword at him and he exploded into dust, the sword kept on going, until it disappeared into the trees shadow. In Utakata's shadow, the blade flew out upwards, the momentum from the throw still carrying it upwards. Utakata caught the handle before it passed to high and held it by his side.

He glanced around the trees, before grabbing Bianca's wrist, "you have Volpe?" He asked, not looking back to her, his gaze drifting around, looking for targets.

"Yeah, he's on my shoulder." Bianca said, confusion and fear in her voice.

"Good, hold onto him tight." He said, before running to the nearest shadow, Bianca trailing behind him, reaching for the fox and holding him in her other hand, nestled under her elbow.

"What are you-" Bianca was beginning to say, but her brother ran into the tree and disappeared. Bianca didn't have time to ask anything before the world turned to black. For a moment, everything was freezing, and it felt like she was moving several g's faster than she was accustomed to, then she was in her brother's room. "What the hell was that?" She asked and looked at her brother, who was panting.

"Shadow… travel." He panted.

"What's going on?" She asked, "no more lie's, no more I'll tell you later, what the hell is going on?" She demanded, angrily.

Utakata looked at her with a grimace, he looked to the open door and took a peek outside before grabbing Volpe and putting him outside, "go play with Nico." He said before pulling the door over and closing it tight, placing his palm on the lock, muttering something, "you can't let Nico know, he's too young, it'll only put him in danger." He explained, moving back and taking a seat on the bed and gesturing her to do the same.

"I think I'll decide what he needs to know for myself." She said, a glare on her face.

He took a deep breath and sighed even deeper, "okay… right, well I suppose it's best we start off with what those things were. They're Arimaspi."

"That's what my teacher said." She snapped, "what are they."

"They're monsters." He said, sighing to himself.

Bianca stared at him and blinked, "what?"

"Monsters. Normally, that particular kind don't come down south, but certain events has brought them down here." He sighed.

"Monsters?" She asked, staring at him like he was insane.

"Yeah." He replied, "I'm surprised this is your first major interaction, but I suppose you were getting to old for the mist to continue working the way it has been."

"You're crazy." She breathed out, standing and moving to the door, "monsters." She scoffed.

She tried to grab the handle and pulled but got nowhere, it didn't budge. Her heart began to race, fear running through her veins. It felt like this morning, when her teacher had locked her in the room with him and tried to kill her.

"I'm not crazy," Utakata said, stood up, she backed away, he sighed and stepped back, hands out showing he wasn't going to hurt her, "look, I'm not the best at explaining this," he scratched the back of his head. "I'll start from the beginning. Our father isn't dead."

Bianca's heart felt like it had stopped, like someone had doused her with ice. Before she could comment he continued.

"I'm sorry for not telling you, but it was the best option, our father does care about you and Nico, and he's done all he can to protect you."

"You're lying." Bianca whispered.

He frowned sadly, "no, I'm not, I'm sorry for not telling you, but he isn't dead. His name is Hades, and he's a god."

"S-stop this." Bianca's voice wavered, her throat clenching painfully, "please, it's not funny."

Utakata sighed before moving closer to his sister, she flinched away from him, "it's not a joke. Our father is Hades, Greek god of the underworld."

"Stop it!" She yelled, the room darkened, the light flickering, "I-I don't know what's going on, stop making it worse!"

"I should have told you before now, but father asked me not to. He wanted to give you a chance to live your life outside of our world. I know it is hard to believe, but you need to trust me."

"Shut up!" The shadows around the room lashed out angrily, spiking randomly, forming shapes barely visible in the dark. Thriving masses of shadows curled around the rooms only light source like a snake, the room was silent. Then they came. They were only there for moments, phantoms of creatures moving too fast to be seen head on, only able to be seen in the corner of your eye, never there when you turned. They were silent. Until they exploded around the room, moving in a mass swarm of darkness, like smoke one moment, and solid the next. Bianca watched their performance with terror, Utakata rushed forward and grabbed her arms.

"Bianca, calm down." He said, grabbing her wrists.

"This… this… what's going on?" She watched the darkness terrified.

"You're losing control of your powers. It looks like they've been manifesting for a while, growing with no control. That needs to change. Focus." He commanded.

"But I-I can't." She said, closing her eyes and trying to curl away from the shadows.

"You can." He pulled her up and turned her to face the writhing mass, "command them."

She clenched her eyes shut, but it did her no good, even with her eyes closed, she could still somehow see them, their forms writhing, twisting and turning.

"Do it!" Her brother said.

She tried to remember what had happened last time, and raised her arms before her, "stop!" She yelled, her voice wavering.

Even still, the shadows listened, they stopped moving, and, even though they had no eyes, she felt like she was being watched by thousands of eyes. The room was still dark, pitch black but she could make out random features, she looked over them all, she recognised them, they were all spectral forms of creatures. But they were all familiar, the birds she had seen at the park from time to time, the dog that the neighbour three doors down owned, a poodle, looking much more threatening with its white coat traded in for a pitch black one. Finally, she stifled a gasp at the sight of a very familiar fox. Volpe, his normally happy smile stretched into a sinister snarl, his glowing silver fur inverted with an inky black coat.

"W-what are they?" She asked her brother, turning away and facing him.

He grimaced, "shadows." He said, moving to the one in the form of Volpe, "you panicked, your powers reflected that. They are nothing more than shadows cast as puppets." He swiped his hand through the fox and it went through like it were smoke.

"But how do I…"

"You have an affinity for shadows, you can do much more than this. Like I said, you are a demi-god, a daughter of Hades."

"You're not lying?" She sounded vulnerable, terrified.

"No. We are both children of Hades," He sighed, "and I think I'm going to tell you everything."

 **A/N: Is it good? I don't know, but I'm just done with this chapter for now, I hope you enjoyed, anyway, I want to thank Joseph Deluca for the idea about the masks, I'm on the fence about the design, but good shout.**  
 **I'm sorry if this chapter isn't the best, but I'm trying to juggle a lot right now. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading. I'm not sure when the next update will be, but I'm hoping to get it done soon, until then, goodbye.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Yay, I kind of wrote a long chapter, and not too long after the last one! Wow! I** **defiantly** **should be spending more time revising and stuff, but, well, here we are.**

 **Anyway, someone, (leaving the name anonymous for... reasons?) asked me when Naruto would be back, also someone in the comments, go read that if your interested because that will be such a fun thing to do.**

 **Naruto will be back soon, by the end of this book at the latest, but he'll** **probably** **show up a bit earlier than that, so don't worry about that. So, yeah, don't you worry about that.**

 **Oh, also, this story mightn't be as long as the last one, and it is done this way because now I'm trying to focus on keeping the** **timing of this chapter in the same sort of time frame, and it's done chronologically so there's that. I don't have a** **particular** **reason for this, I'm just doing it, well, it is partly due to Uncle Rick doing this, and partially just because about halfway through I realised I was doing it, so I stuck to it.**

 **So, now that that is out of the way, on with the story:**

When Percy made it back to the Poseidon cabin after an uncomfortable campfire where many campers tried to hide their laughter at him, he was met with an angry Yagura. She was standing in their doorway, hands on her hips and a glare aimed right at him, not as bad as what Tantalus got, but Percy still found himself shifting uncomfortably under it.

"Tyson's asleep." Yagura said with false sweetness. "You know, he was telling me such nice things about how you would always let him come around to yours and play with your pet fox." Her voice now matched the glare. "The same fox you refused to tell me about and have had for more than a year apparently."

"What is it with your guys obsession with Anchor? And Whiskers come to think of it?" Percy asked with a sigh, as the glare increased he was missing Anchors presence. Whiskers said that he would bring him to help find a place for a den suitable for the other fox, near the Poseidon cabin. Annabeth had gone with to make sure they didn't tear each other apart but had shot down Percy's attempts to join them.

"What is our–You–Gods damned…" She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. "You know damn well that we are on the lookout for them. They are what are going to lead us to our brother, I told you we were looking for him, right?" He nodded at that. "Right, and we told everyone that the foxes were important to that last year when Whiskers and Bandit nearly went nuclear, remember?"

"Wait… What?" Percy eyes gaped like a fish and he looked absolutely astonished, "when… how… what?"

"How could you not have noticed you… slept right through it." She blinked, "and then Chiron ordered no one to talk about it." She scrunched her face up in confusion, "but what about when we discovered about Whiskers over the IM, when you… left to explore the ship." She brought her hands to her temples, and just muttered under her breath in Japanese and Ancient Greek, what Percy did manage to make out wasn't particularly flattering.

"Umm… what happened?" Percy asked, breaking her out of her long string of cursing, Poseidon must have given her the mouth of a sailor.

Yagura took a deep breath and sighed, "okay. So, you know nothing… right." Another sigh. "Well, your fox Anchor, he's my brother."

She paused, and Percy was waiting for her to say, 'ha, got you, I just really like silver foxes.' But it didn't come.

"Your brother?" Percy finally asked.

"Yes."

"Anchor. The fox, is your, Yagura, the demi-gods brother?"

"Well not biologically." Percy felt relieved, his sister wasn't crazy, "no, just in the same way all us jinchuuriki are related." Relief gone, she's nuts.

"Umm…" There wasn't really anything you can say to someone who believes that their brother is a fox. Though, to be fair, since joining the Greek world, Percy had been subjected to a great number of weird things, so for now he may as well go with is. "Right, umm, could you maybe… explain?"

"Yeah, sure." She took her staff off her back and Percy was worried that she had somehow sensed his doubt and was now going to beat her beliefs into him, but instead she grabbed a water bottle and tipped it out. The water hovered in a bubble about a foot from the floor, she used her staff and made a circle motion with it, the water span, following her staff like a cat with a laser pointer. It eventually spread itself out into a rough approximation of a circle, about three feet in diameter. "Sorry," Yagura said, a small smile on her face, "I just feel it would make more sense to you with visual aid."

Percy felt a bit offended and a bit glad. Upset because she thought he wouldn't be able to keep up with her, and glad because he was pretty sure that if it was something complicated, he probably wouldn't be able to keep up with her.

Yagura made some weird movements with her hands and placed her palm on the surface of the water, and it shimmered before morphing into an image. Then it flickered and died, before coming back, it was like a TV flickering between channels, but moving too fast for you to figure out what was going on. Yagura looked at Percy weirdly for a moment.

"Can you see anything?" She asked, confusion in her voice.

"Yeah, sort of. It's flickering." He replied.

"It shouldn't be." Yagura muttered, before redoing the weird movements with her hands and pressing the water again. It looked the same. Yagura hummed to herself, "let me try something." She made more hand signs and for a second there was another her beside her, then it flickered and died. "Do you see another me?"

"I did, but it disappeared after a second." Percy replied, "what's all this got to do with Anchor."

"Absolutely nothing," Yagura said, "but it looks like we're experiencing some technical difficulties with the visual aids. It seems you're immune to Genjutsu." She hummed in thought, "or maybe low-level ones, I can't be sure, I'll talk to Roshi about it later, anyway, we're getting distracted." She gestured to the water and moved her hands like a conductor, the water rolled up like it were play-dough and then dived into the bottle again in a strange inverted diving competition. Percy gave it a ten.

"Right, well, where to begin?" Yagura hummed, "okay, my brother Naruto, was working on a project of his, he was trying to work around a small problem we would have to deal with, with death." Percy balked and gaped at her.

"How is death a small problem?" He nearly yelled.

"That was only part of it, it was mainly to fix another problem, but that's not important. So, he found a way to stop someone from dying, theoretically, and, well, from what we can tell, he tested it on himself, but he couldn't exactly test it without, you know." Percy nodded trying to stem the vast flow of questions he had. "Well, there was an… incident, and he was shot in the head." Again, Percy tried to hold the questions in, "the method worked, at least it did what it was supposed to, and he's still alive. His method, was to split himself up into nine pieces. He split himself into nine foxes."

Percy's jaw dropped.

"So, your fox, Anchor; Annabeth's Whiskers; Clarisse's Bandit; whatever the one Utakata is with is called; and," her throat caught slightly, "and Thalia's Parrot." Now Percy could understand, he remembered what happened to Thalia and her fox, they were turned into a tree, to keep them alive, the same tree that helped power the camps borders, the same tree that had been poisoned.

"I…" he couldn't really think of what to say, I mean, how do you react when you find out your best (and for a long time, only) friend, was actually part of your stepsisters 'brother' and another part of him was a tree that was dying.

"Sorry," she said, "I know it's probably a shock."

"B-but Anchor doesn't talk, or…" he was going to say change sizes, but today's actions proved otherwise.

"No offense, but," Yagura began, so Percy got ready to be offended, I mean, does anyone ever start a sentence with that and not offend anyone, "that is probably your fault. Annabeth said she taught Whiskers, I'd assume the others did the same, to some extent at least. English isn't our first language."

"Right, of course, that's always the first thing I think of when I see a fox, 'I wonder if you speak Japanese,' of course." Percy replied.

"No need to be so sarcastic, it might have been something to do with the mist, Annabeth said Whiskers started speaking by copying her, apparently that's what happened to Parrot to earn him the name." Yagura replied. "Anyway, there's something else." She took a deep breath, "they need to be brought together again, we don't know what will happen then, he might forget… you."

Percy felt numb. For a long time, Anchor had been his only friend, even though he only got to see him in the summer and on their short weekend trips up until last year, the fox had been a constant. They only became closer after he moved in, the boredom of the school year became tolerable with his friend by his side, to lose him.

"No."

"Look, I know-"

"No."

"Percy-"

"No. I'm not going to lose him." He moved to leave the cabin, to find the fox, but Yagura placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him with a firm grip.

"Percy, he could die."

The son of Poseidon froze.

"If any of the foxes were to actually die, he might, we don't know the limits of this, it's completely untested."

Percy didn't move, he just stood there, not looking at Yagura.

"I'm sorry, but we need him back." With that, she turned and left the cabin, going to her boat to talk to the other jinchuuriki.

Percy stood, looking after her for a long moment, before turning back to the cabin, he saw Tyson, snoring away and quietly moved to his bunk. He spent a long time simply staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. He tried to ignore the tears that fell down his face as he thought about the horrible fate in store for him, either to lose his friend, or to let him die.

(Yagura's boat)

As Yagura sank into the leather sofa of the game room, slightly worn down from constant use by several campers, she thought about her conversation with her brother. She probably could have broken it to him better, but he had kept Nar-Anchor hidden from them for so long. Sure he didn't know, but still. With a sigh she looked up and found B huddled under a few blankets on another sofa.

Poor B. At camp most of the jinchuuriki had someone, Percy for her, and whole cabins of siblings for everybody else. Garra was in New Rome with his siblings and Utakata… they weren't really sure about him. He had given away nothing about his mission, only that he had found a fox. He told them he went by the name of 'Volpe' which they found out was Italian for 'fox' so the person who named him must have been very creative. Anyway, back to B, he had no one here at camp, until he found out about the spirit of his sister that resided in the tree. With the additional news that part of Naruto was in the tree, his siblings soon found out that he would go and talk to Thalia. He was the one to find out about the poison and had been furious. No one was sure who caused the lighting storm that day, B or his father, as news from the Olympian council spread of Zeus's anger, eventually leading to Chiron being fired.

For a few days, B had spent every moment staying with the tree, destroying any monster that dared to come near it. This lasted until Yugito brought him back to his cabin after he had passed out under his sister's decaying branches. She gave him a stern talking to when he woke up, and he begrudgingly agreed that he was just going to end up hurting himself.

Thus, the shifts for border patrol were brought into play. The 'normal' campers, after seeing B keep back all the monsters for nearly a week, figured that one jinchuuriki could work at the same rate as ten normal campers. Though not necessarily true for all monsters, their ability to use chakra did give them an advantage, that, added to their years of combat experience, word had gotten out, meant that even the Ares cabin agreed to this.

So, at any time, there were either, two jinchuuriki, twenty campers or ten campers and a jinchuuriki guarding the border. The bulls this morning caught them just before they traded shifts, but Yagura was running late because she was running the canoeing classes and got held back when one Apollo camper tried his luck with a particularly feisty naiad. After saving his life, she had made it just in time to save Percy and find out that another part of Naruto was at camp.

Coming out of her musing, she glanced to the clock which showed that it was going to be B's turn for border patrol soon. He picked the night shifts and slept most of the rest of the day away, for the most part, he spent his time here, claiming that it was more comfortable than the Zeus cabin.

"May as well wake him up." She muttered before moving and prodding her brother in the shoulder with her staff.

He woke with a bolt. No that's not a typo, he woke with bolts of lighting sparking off him and shocking his sister.

"Sorry." He muttered when he saw her rubbing a burn mark on her hand, it wasn't that bad, but it was pretty painfully.

"It's fine, it's nearly time for your shift." She said, nodding towards the clock.

"Right, anything else?" He asked as he picked up Samehada who had been snoozing alongside him.

"Yeah, new fox." She said nonchalantly.

"That's good." He stopped and turned, "wait what?"

"Percy brought a new fox to camp." She said with a small grin, he deserved to hear some good news now.

"Oh wow, that's great. Time for the mighty eight…" He trailed off, but Yagura's smile grew slightly, that was the first time he had tried to rap since he had found Thalia's dead needles start falling.

"Go ahead and finish it." Yagura said 'it' like 'ate' to get it to rhyme.

B sniggered, "ai'aight, I gotta go, but you listen sis, don't mess my flow." With that, B left the room with the biggest smile he's had in a while.

Yagura sank back into the chair and took a deep breath and waited. Though she wanted to spend the night in her cabin, now that it wasn't so empty: Percy probably wasn't too happy with her; and she had to talk with Roshi about what had happened when she tried her Genjutsu on Percy.

It just didn't make sense. She'd used that technique before, it was simple, but chakra draining, perfect for jinchuuriki, and one of the only Genjutsu in her arsenal, the other being standard clones. And she only learned those to win a bet with Mei.

"Hey." A voice called from the doorway. She turned just as Yugito walked in, "why aren't you with your brother, I thought that's why you left early."

"Tyson's asleep, and Percy's…" She sighed, "Percy's had Anchor for years."

"What?" Yugito frowned, "why the hell didn't he say anything?"

"He didn't know." She explained the rather convenient circumstances that allowed for him to miss out on every acknowledgement that they knew the foxes.

"That's…" Yugito began before just giving up.

"Yeah, but I told him about bringing Naruto back. He wasn't too thrilled."

"I'd expect so." Yugito hummed, "so you're just avoiding him?"

"No, that's not all. I tried to do a minor Gejutsu on him, just to give him a visual aid, but it just didn't work."

Yugito's eyebrows creased upwards, "didn't work?"

"Yeah. He said he saw it, but it immediately vanished, like…" She gained a thoughtful look, "Genjutsu work by messing with the chakra in another person's brain, right?" Yugito nodded, "but the people here have no chakra."

Yugito gained her own thoughtful pose, "hmm, but then why did it work at the start, surely it just wouldn't have started at all."

"Yeah…"

"Oh, Roshi told me to tell you since you left early, he's staying in his cabin tonight. He's talking to Annabeth about something. I think their cabin's just going to be brainstorming."

Yagura sighed, "right, then I'd best go back to me cabin. Percy's probably asleep now."

"Yeah, same here." Yugito said, and they both left the boat.

(Los Angeles)

Bianca was trying to digest everything her brother had said. The gods were real, her dad was one of them, not only that, but he was the ruler of the Underworld, Hades. Her mind kept telling her that this was all crazy, but her brother showed her as much proof as he could, showing her his sword, moving the shadows and explaining everything to try and prove she wasn't crazy.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? Why do you still want to keep Nico out of it?" She was angry, this was huge, why would he hide this from her.

Utakata sighed, "because knowing makes your scent stronger. I'm not exactly sure why, but if you know, your scent gets more powerful, easier to find. Normally, a demi-god with your scent would have been tracked down by every monster within a five-mile radius, with you and Nico here, ten-mile, plus Volpe, probably eleven… maybe, add me in the mix and you've got most of the monsters in L.A. on our doorstep."

"Then why haven't they found us?"

"They have." Bianca's heart nearly stopped.

"T-then why are we not…"

At this he smirked, Bianca decided that his answer better be worth it, otherwise she would re-arrange his face, so he couldn't smirk, "that's because of me."

"What?"

"Yeah," he actually started looking sheepish, "see, I don't actually have a job. I have been systematically tearing apart every monster in L.A. if they start looking our way."

Bianca looked horrified, "y-you've been fighting off all those… all year?!"

"Yeah." He immediately got whacked on the head by his irate sister.

"Idiota, avresti potuto essere ucciso-"

"Callimiatu… No, calmati." He said.

"You're speaking Italian?" She asked in shock, her point forgotten for now.

"No, you were speaking Italian, I was trying to speak Italian."

"No, but… since when?"

"I started taking lessons last month."

"Why?"

"To… well, to try and learn a bit about your home. I know you don't remember much, but you and Nico seem so much happier when you're speaking Italian. I just thought it'd be nice. It's a bit easier than learning English, but that's probably because it's closer to Latin."

"That's…" She smiled at her brother for a moment before it turned to a frown, "damnit, I can't get annoyed now."

"See, you can't stay mad at me." He said with that infuriating smirk, oh, look, angers back again.

"You idiot, you could have been killed." She said, "is this why you're so tired all of the time?"

He reluctantly nodded. She smacked him again.

"Idiota."

"Right, sorry." He said, rubbing his head, she smirked at that.

"Anything else?"

"Not really, I told you about camp, right?"

"Yeah."

"And the oath?"

She nodded, that was probably what hurt the most, the fact that she wasn't supposed to exist.

"And, the Lotus – oh! Volpe!"

"No. What's wrong with Volpe." She paused, "wait, earlier you said that he would add to the scent the three of us give off."

He winced at that, "yeah."

"So, is he a demi-god?"

"Sort of…"

"What do you mean?" The fact that she didn't even smile when he flinched showed just how serious a question this was.

"He's… well, he's my brother for a start." Before she could un-gobsmack herself he continued, "remember when I said we lost our brother. He shou-would have died. He managed to stop it, by splitting his body into parts using a complicated technique. Each of the pieces became… foxes."

That was enough to reboot her, "what?!"

"Naruto used a technique to split himself into nine pieces. Because of the… situation he was in, each piece ended up somewhere random. We've been tracking them down."

Only a few parts were sticking with Bianca. "So, when I let Volpe lick my cheek, he's actually a…"

"No, he is very much a fox. Volpe is a fox, Naruto is… a person. He seems to have no memory of being Naruto and is his own person." He scowled for a moment before lightening up.

Now that Bianca had got over the initial shock, something seemed to click with her, "so, you only agreed to look after us because we had Volpe?" Her voice wavered, that hurt to even think about, that her brother, who had been so caring, who had helped take the load of raising Nico from her only cared about Volpe.

"No." He said, moving closer beside her and bringing her into a hug, she pushed him off, "I do actually care about you, you're my sister."

"But, you came for Volpe." Even though she was the one saying them, the words felt like fire.

"Bianca I-"

"Tell me the truth." She interrupted, "did you come here for me and Nico, or Volpe?" She was absolutely terrified of the answer, even after asking, she felt like trying to take the question back.

"Bianca-"

"The truth." She couldn't stop herself, the fear just got worse.

Utakata sighed, "just let me explain, okay."

That was his answer, he had never cared about her, or Nico, he probably didn't care about their family, he just wanted his brother back.

Bianca stood up, "unlock the door." She whispered, she hoped that turning away hid the tears crawling down her teeth, and the whisper hid the fact that any louder would make her voice crack.

"Bianca, I-"

"Now!" The anger was like a red-hot poker, her eyes burned with tears, her throat was hoarse and her chest her hands were shaking.

"It was both of you, I only-"

"Shut up and o-open the door!" She croaked out, anger and sadness fighting for dominance.

He sighed, "I'm sorry." He placed his hand on the knob and opened it, Bianca shouldered passed.

"I don't care." She ran to her room, passing Nico who frowned at the tears.

"Sis, what's-"

SLAM

"-wrong?"

"Leave her for now." Utakata said, placing a hand on the younger boy's shoulder.

"What's… what happened?"

"I… I told her something, it's best if you don't know." He sighed.

"But-"

"Just… leave her be for now." Utakata said, "I'll talk to her later."

"Alright."

Bianca cried into her pillow, the tears wouldn't stop. How could he? Why did it hurt so much?

She heard a soft whimper from her bedside table but ignored it. Another whimper, she ignored it again. This time something wet touched her ear. She turned and found a small black nose, followed by a flash of silver.

"Volpe?"

The fox yipped and licked her cheek, brushing away the tears. He put his paw on her hair and tapped it a few times. She remembered hearing somewhere that dogs do that to pet humans, since they enjoy being petted, they try and reciprocate the feeling in their owners by petting them. She smiled despite the anger and sadness.

Then she remembered what her brother… Utakata had said. Utakata's wasn't a fox, he was part of a human. Looking at him, she just didn't believe that, she could only see him for what he had been for her. Her best friend.

She sat up and brought the fox to her chest, the tears still fell, but she didn't feel as sad. Volpe would always be there for her.

(Monongahela National Forest Park, Virginia)

The hunting troupe of four decided to set up camp for the night. The commonwealth was one of the most visited places in the country for the hunt to go. This was mostly done because it was named after their leader, but it also had one of the best forests for hunting in the state. So long as you ensured you didn't hunt any of the endangered species residing in the forest.

For now, though, Yugao was less interested in that, and more interested in her current reading materials. The diaries started from when he was about eight and went on until the day before they came to this new world.

 _Why? Why would they let this happen to me? All I wanted was to help them. I wanted them to be happy and they did this to me…_

She had skipped much of it, refusing to intrude in her godson's privacy and had gone straight to the last book, working backwards to try and find anything that might help them. So far, she had found nothing. She skimmed back to the start of the third book, the only one that still had spare pages and tried from there. He started this one just before he left the village.

 _I'm so sorry that I had to leave them, Yugao, Anko, Kurenai. I never wanted this to happen, but it's done now. I wish I could go back and just talk to them. Maybe I could… no. It's too late. I can't go back. Not yet, I'll go back someday. Until then I'll deal with this, I'll go back._

It broke her heart to read. But she still read on, hoping for something that may give her some insight into helping him. So far, there was nothing.

 _Today we finalised our plans to finish of the Akatsuki. Soon, it'll be time to go to war, until then, I'll stay with Shinrin and Katsu. They've been a big help, even with all this going on._

She skipped it, it didn't seem to be too informative. The diaries weren't as helpful as they thought, sure there were some things on seals, but they had nothing to do with what she wanted to know.

 _I've finally finished the seals for the box._

Now this was interesting, was this the same box they found in the mask with the diaries?

 _They should be safe here. No one knows about it, the others seem to have forgotten about them, or at least that I have them. It was a pain getting each of them to put chakra into their seals, but I managed it. Kurama might know what I'm doing, but so far hasn't said anything. I think it's for the best, they should stay hidden._

Okay, now she was even more curious about what was in the box. Something that he kept hidden from even the other jinchuuriki. What could it be?

 _This seal is probably the most complex one I've ever done. Hell, it was harder to make than what I tried to make for saving us._

Is this it?

 _Well, not harder to make. This one was easy in theory, but damn near impossible to actually make. The other was impossible in theory but easier to apply. I should probably find a way to test it, but it seems a bit of a waste now since it wouldn't work with the new plan. But that doesn't matter._

"Damn it." Yugao muttered to herself.

"Something wrong?" Anko asked from the fire. How long had she been reading for? The others were already making diner, the remains of the hunt from three days ago still lasting.

"Nothing, he just mentioned it, but stopped." Yugao muttered, bringing her hands to her forehead and rubbing her temples.

"Take a break." Kurenai said, "you've been reading that every chance you get. I know it's important, but you need to take a break for now."

"Right, sure." She said, her neck was killing her from being hunched over like that and her legs had pins and needles.

"What doeth thou find?" Zoe asked.

"Not much that we didn't know, just that it's complicated and he never got around to testing it by the looks of it. Also, even he thought the theory behind it was impossible."

"Well, at least that's something." Anko said, taking some meat off the fire and tearing into it.

"But it's not helpful." Yugao said.

"Yeah, but it proves he said something in the diaries, that means he might have written more."

She sighed, "fair enough. But I just feel like I'm getting nowhere just reading it. And it doesn't feel right."

Kurenai frowned to herself, "maybe, but it's necessary."

"I suppose." Yugao agreed, "but it still doesn't make it feel any better."

"Yeah."

They lapsed into silence, the fire crackling was the only sound in the woods.

(New Rome)

Garra sighed as he sat down on the sand that spontaneously turned into a chair for him. One of the handier aspects of his abilities. He rubbed his temples as he looked at the list in front of him and barely held in a groan.

The bride had, at the last minute, decided she wanted white roses instead of red ones. Why they wanted roses instead of the lotus blossom he suggested just boggled the mind.

Oh, right, context, that's always important.

Garra had been given the 'honour' of planning the wedding of two citizens of the city, who had served in the legion for many years and were now settling down. Marriage was one of the few things that had been modernised in the city, for some reason.

Which put him in a bit of a bind, since he had never seen a wedding, never mind planned one. Thankfully, though, Temari had been a big help. She said that both her and Kankuro had each performed their own service when they came, being a child of Juno was enough to qualify you for the position apparently.

So, since Temari was busy being Praetor, and Kankuro was 'busy running the cohort,' though Garra suspected his brother just found it funny to watch Garra struggle.

After a year of living in the camp, he had earned enough respect for the happy couple not to downright refuse him as their planner, he didn't have enough respect that they wanted to be near him and help him. They simply gave him a list of things to do, or, more commonly, sent one of their minions (bridesmaids) to give him the list.

Since they changed their minds so much, he was getting sick of ordering everything and then having to change it when it just didn't fit their tastes. Now he was just too tired to care.

"Why?" He questioned the sky, kind of hoping the gods knew he was being rhetorical and wasn't expecting them to come down and lecture him on what exactly he did to deserve it, he imagined it was quite the list by this point.

"You'll get it done fine, Garra." Mary, perhaps his favourite of their minions, said. She was at least polite as she handed him the long list of changes, the others either just stared at him, or kept their eyes off him, looking scared. The girl was a legacy of Ceres, with dirt brown eyes and honey blonde hair. Her parents moved into New Rome twenty years ago to have her.

"I know I'll get it done, that's the part I'm looking forward to, it's the doing it part I'm not so fond of." He drawled out, leaning back in his suddenly recliner made of sand.

"They're just nervous, the weddings in less than a week." Mary said.

"I know, which is why last-minute changes are becoming such a pain."

"You'll do fine." She said with a grin, "besides, by next week, it'll be over, and you won't have to deal with me anymore."

"Yeah, joy." He drawled.

"Why don't you take a break, go for a walk or something, get your mind off it."

He took a deep breath and hummed to himself, "yeah, sure."

"Right, I'll hold down the fort." She said, reaching for the ring binder that held all the wedding details. He pulled it away and held it to his chest. The binder was strange, well not strange if you were a camper here. It had the insignia of Juno, what looked like a flower surrounded by a circle. Around that were the words Senatus Populusque Romanus written around it in golden script, with a purple background. The planner wouldn't stand out too much in the legion, but what would stand out is what it was used for.

The binder was actually his shield, or his scutum. The when you opened the binder and say the word 'Lucina' the shield his mother gave him would appear in it's true form. This really freaked him out the first time he tried it (mostly since he wasn't given any warning, and was confused when he woke up and found his shield replaced by a ring binder with a few pages in it, the one on the front reading 'Lucina')

The fact that he could use the binder to keep track of the wedding details was just a happy coincidence.

"I'll keep an eye on this," he said, "but could you go in to the florist and ask for Sarah to change the order of red roses to white ones."

The girl winced, "she won't like that."

He snorted, "I know, that's why you're doing it."

"Fine," she groaned, "since you're so nice to me, but it is going on your tab, along with whatever else I decide to buy there." She ran off before he could reply.

"I don't know what's worse." He muttered, "the fact that they change their minds every few hours, or the fact that I now have a tab in a florist."

With a deep sigh, he wondered off to find something to take his mind off the hell that was wedding planning.

And immediately ran into Jason Grace.

The boy was apparently a big deal around the camp, he was a son of Jupiter, though he thankfully didn't rap like B, and was under the blessing of Juno. Though Garra wasn't sure of the details, he figured the blessing wasn't because she wanted to get closer to her step-son.

The boy was red, clearly doing a small job for his sister. That was another thing, it seemed that Temari was grooming the boy up to take over for her, she had asked that he be her personal messenger until he gained a higher rank. She wasn't subtle, purposefully so, she knew no one would directly act against either her, or the sole son of Jupiter in camp, so his job as messenger was a mere farce to let him experience the political world of the camp. Something he would clearly need, as even as a kid, it was clear that he was a warrior, not a politician.

Of course, only those versed in politics would recognise the move, but people seemed to think he deserved the position, simply for being a son of Jupiter. The masses seemed easy to please.

"Garra." He said after a deep breath, not bothering with the formalities like 'ave romana' or anything.

"Yes."

"Your sister has summoned you, urgently" He breathed out.

"Right, okay. Lead the way."

The boy started walking down to Temari's house, the perks of power, leading the son of Juno to his destination. They ignored the other campers, as the busied about getting ready for the inspection that was coming up.

Jason went to knock but Garra simply opened the door, if his sister called him urgently, she expected him to be there.

His sister was waiting, ignoring his questions she simply grabbed his arm and dragged him away, dismissing Jason with a wave.

She sat him down in front of her desk but didn't take a seat herself, opting to hover to the side of the desk, she bit her lip and stared at the pages lining her desk.

"You called me, Praetor." Garra drawled out.

"Yes," she grabbed a few papers and set them in front of her seat and finally took her place in front of him, she looked him right in the eye, "have you noticed anything odd going on around camp?"

"Odd?" She nodded, "not really, I've been busy with the wedding. Should I have?"

"I suppose you wouldn't have noticed as much, you have only been here a year." She sighed and lifted a sheet of paper, "as you know, Lupa sends the campers to us, normally one at a time, sometimes in small groups of no more than four if there are siblings or just demi-gods who show up to her at once." She lifted one page with a list of numbers on it, "now, the number of demi-gods coming per month is never particularly high, normally no more than five or ten, this is just the average, due to the spike in summer, it is probably closer to five than ten."

"Right, okay."

"This year however, it's different." She handed him the sheet, "read that."

The list showed the number of demi-gods who came to camp over the year, by month, starting from last August. And it was showing a worrying trend.

"There are less campers making it to camp." He noted.

"Yes, now this wouldn't be so bad, there have been years like this, some campers just don't make it, they leave Lupa and die, sad, but true. But, I talked to her, or rather, she sent a messenger, those on that list are the ones who made it to her or her wolves found."

"But… there are three months here were no campers showed up. Hell, last month only one kid showed up."

"I know, as far as I can tell, there are three explanations: the gods have decided to stop making demi-gods, very unlikely; the monsters are getting better, very worrying; or…" She looked him in the eye, "someone else is taking them."

"Someone else?"

"That is probably the most likely unfortunately. I've got in contact with some campers who have left camp, they reported no rise in monster activity, in fact, they said if anything, monster activity is lower than normal. And I doubt the gods would ever stop having so many kids."

"You said the monster attacks are lower, would it be possible they've given up on older demi-gods and start focusing on them when they're younger?"

"That's what I thought, but that kid who came in last month gave me some worrying news." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "He said someone came to him, a demi-god. He tried to recruit him, the guy brought monsters with him. Two werewolves." She took a deep breath, "what I say here, doesn't leave this room, got it?"

He nodded.

"The demi-god claimed that Saturn was rising." Garra's heart tried to tear itself free from his ribs, the room seemed to be darker, the shadows longer, a cold shiver ran down his spine.

"Are you sure?"

"No, the kid may have misheard, or… something. But, this warrants investigation. If there is even the slightest possibility…"

"I understand."

"The jinchuuriki, you can contact them with the mind… thingy?" He nodded, "good, tell them to keep an eye out, and that they should come back. They'll be safer here, and the camp would be safer from them."

"I'm not sure that they'll listen, but I'll tell them."

"Good, but, ask if they've heard anything. It's probably… no, more than likely wrong," she didn't sound too convinced, "but just in case, ask if they've heard anything."

"I will. But I doubt they'll come back, from what they've told me, their closer to finding him than ever. They won't give that up."

"I know, but it would be better if they were here. For everyone."

"Have you told Kankuro?"

She put her head in her hands and sighed, "no, Kankuro's being more of a pain than usual. I don't know what's going on, but's he's annoyed at something," Garra could guess who, he hadn't gotten over the problems his arrival had given him in the election last year, and was still acting bitter about it, "he's acting irrationally about everything. He also has less experience than you in this."

"Right… I'll tell the others, they might know more about this." Garra said as he left the room, moving quickly back to the barracks, fearing what his siblings hadn't told him was going on, on the Greek side of things. He ignored Mary when she passed with a few receipts from the florist, instead going to his bed and assuming a meditative position to enter the mind-scape, they were probably already there, due to the three hour difference between New York and San Francisco.

 **A/N: Well wasn't that a nice cheery chapter?**

 **Hey, so I have a theory, it has absolutely nothing to do with this chapter, or, even this book. No, I just had a thought about Hera/Juno and the whole 'doesn't like Hephaestus/Vulcan' and is disappointed in Ares/Mars thing.**

 **When I was reading the lost hero and son of Neptune, I noticed that Hera sort of knows who the seven were when they were kids. And, looking in the books, you can see that the only ones she personally visits, even though they're babies, are Frank and Leo.**

 **Hazel's dead and she didn't visit before she died, so she's out.**

 **There is no mention of anything like this for Piper, so she's out.**

 **We don't see anything like this for Annabeth, so she's out.**

 **Jason... maybe, but only because she kidnapped him, but it isn't done in the same sense, he's more like a... sacrifice to appease him? And I don't think that she likes that, so he's out.**

 **As for Percy... well you could make the argument that the snake that attacked him when he was a toddler was from Hera, since she did it with Heracles/Hercules, but that seems a bit... extreme.**

 **Don't get me wrong, putting a kid in fire is extreme, and so is telling a kid his life is tied to a stick that is currently burning in the fire is also extreme. But they are a bit different, Leo is fire proof, and (I hope) Hera knows this at the time, or at least has an educated guess towards it.**

 **And for Frank, it was a warning really.**

 **The whole snake thing could also have been sent by Gaia, since her sacred animal is the serpent, and she did have moments were she was more awake than she should have been (when she caused Leo's mom's death) so it could have been an attempt to get rid of him early on.**

 **Anyway, it was just a nice thought, I know that Hera/Juno isn't the most well liked in the series (with a whole lot of good reason) but there are small things that could make her out to be a nicer person.**

 **Well, I went on for a while there. Thanks for reading, see you next time.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Just need to say, it's snowing in Ireland! It's the first day of spring and it's snowing. All day it's been snowing on and off, all the busses are down, the trains are down and down south there were red alerts issued all over. It's insane! I mean, sure it's fun and all, but it is so cold if you go outside. Anyone in Ireland, England, Scotland or Wales be careful, and don't do dumb stuff. Unless it's funny, then film it...** **never-mind** **, I'll try and be responsible and stuff, just don't something too stupid to get you hurt. Enjoy yourself too if you can, anyway, on with the story.**

Percy wasn't in a good mood for the next few days. First of all was the looming thought of loosing Anchor, next was the fact that he had to accept Tyson as his brother, and finally, was the opinions of all the other campers about Tyson's presence.

Nobody bought his excuses that Tyson was only his half-brother, least of all Yagura.

After getting really angry at the behaviour of the other campers laughing at him for Tyson, he tried to make his excuses that Tyson wasn't his brother, and Yagura walked into the arena. The other kids left as quickly as they could, apparently unwilling to insult Tyson in front of his big sister. Yagura grabbed Percy by the arm and nearly tore it off as she dragged him back to their cabin.

"What is the matter with you?" She growled after they were out of sight of the other campers.

"I-"

"Tyson is your brother, it shouldn't matter what he is." She hissed.

"But he-"

"You spent an entire year with him. Did you make fun of him behind his back? Did you join the other bullies?"

"No." He refused to look her in the eye, shame welling up within him.

"Then why now? Hmm? Because he's a cyclops?"

"It's just the other campers they-"

"I know what they're like." She glared, "it's you I don't. I remember the last time I visited you told me all about Tyson."

"Back then I didn't know-"

"I know you didn't know what he was back then, but that doesn't change things. He's still the same as he was when you were in school with him."

"But he's a monster." Percy finally said.

Yagura's mouth straitened into a line, her eyes were hard but the anger within them was like a roaring tide.

"Being a monster doesn't make him monstrous, just like being human doesn't make you humane."

She pushed passed him and opened the door, before turning back to him.

"To many people, I would be a monster, but I hide within the shell of a human. Sometimes that's not enough. He's family, will you really let him go because of what those idiots say, if so, then why don't you do the same to me, you heard what Tantalus said to Yugito. We're monsters."

She left him with a lot to think about.

Another problem, was the fate of Anchor.

With Whiskers help, not that he enjoyed it, they managed to find a decent stop for a den not too far from the Poseidon cabin. It was the day after their arrival that Clarisse, and by proxy, Bandit, found out about the new fox, they were not happy.

"Well, well, Prissy." She sneered, the expression copied onto the other fox's face, which didn't sit right with Percy, mostly since it was the same face as Anchor's, it just looked alien. "As much as I miss him, I'm glad Chiron's not here. It was him who came up with the stupid rule that we can't fight together." Bandit snarled in agreement. "Now we can both show you who's best."

She was about to lunge at Percy and Anchor if not for the timely intervention of Fu, who stood between the two groups.

"You're not going to want to do that." She said in a chirpy voice.

"And why not?" Clarisse sneered.

"Do you remember what happened last time he and Whiskers just touched?" She said.

Clarisse glanced at Bandit then Anchor, a strange look, for her, that almost resembled fear flashed across her face. Finally, she settled for glaring at Percy, "see you later Prissy." She snorted.

Once she left, Fu turned to the duo and smiled cheerily at Anchor, "hey little fella." She crouched down till she was eye level with the fox, who was about knee level with Percy. "We haven't been formally introduced yet, I'm Fu." She smiled so bright the sun literally reflected off her pearly whites, kids of Apollo had strange abilities.

Anchor tilted his head and looked to Percy like 'who is this strange green person, and why are her teeth glowing' so Percy shrugged and went with it.

"This is Anchor." He introduced, awkwardly, "Anchor, this is Fu, Yagura's sort of sister."

The fox shrugged and yipped and stuck out a paw.

Fu smiled and shook it, "nice to meet you too." She then looked up to Percy, "thank you for bringing him here, where did you find him?"

"Montauk beech," Percy replied.

"Right, has he learned English?"

"No," he looked at the fox, "I didn't exactly know to teach him."

She smiled and scratched him behind the ears, the fox purred and then yipped, hoping into Percy's arms, "how long has he been with you, he seems attached."

"Ah," Percy said, "Yagura didn't tell you?" She shook her head, "right… umm… I found him a couple years ago. I didn't know you were looking for him, and I just sort of thought he was a normal fox."

Fu's cheerful demeaner seemed an awful lot faker at this information. Thankfully Yagura was passing by and stopped her from murdering Percy.

"I'll explain later," she said, "but it isn't entirely Percy's fault, I'm on duty now, but I'll tell you after."

The two demi-gods and fox were silent for a minute, before Fu decided to just sigh and pet the fox around the ears in his position in Percy's arms. The fox yipped and then Fu hummed to herself.

"You know, I just thought of something." She backed up a bit and bit her thumb, before doing some sign's and slamming her hand to the ground, muttering something under her breath. There was a puff of smoke and when it disappeared, there was a very angry fox sitting there staring at her. The fox sat regally, tail flicking behind it in irritation, it's ginger fur moving like fire, the white strips going across its stomach, around it's eyes and on the end of its tail being the only contradictions.

 _"You have some nerve,"_ Kokatsu began, _"calling me after all these years, and after Naruto die-"_ Suddenly she sniffed and turned a shocked expression to Percy, or rather, the ball of silver in Percy's arms, _"Naruto!"_

She lunged into Percy's arm's knocking the three of them to the floor, she licked at the other fox, tears falling down her face.

 _"We thought you were dead, your name's off the contract, you are in so much trouble mister."_

The other fox shrugged her off, moving behind Percy's head and yipping wildly.

 _"You're damn right I smell familiar."_

Fu moved forward and pried the new fox off Percy, who looked decidedly uncomfortable.

 _"Why the hell haven't you summoned me, or mom, or hell, shown a sign that you were alive?"_

 _"Kokatsu,"_ Fu said gently, _"he doesn't remember."_

 _"What?!"_ The fox turned to the daughter of Apollo, teeth bared, _"what the hell did you do you-"_

 _"It wasn't us, this was him."_ She explained briefly what happened and the fox looked less angry, finally just staring at Anchor sadly.

 _"So… he knows nothing?"_

 _"No. I'm sorry, we should have told you earlier, but we were more worried about finding him, the thought didn't even cross our minds."_ She gained a look, _"he hasn't told you anything about this technique?"_

 _"No. He never said anything about using nature chakra like this."_ She said, looking at Anchor sadly, _"do you know where the others are?"_

 _"We know where five are, three are living at camp here, one is with Utakata… somewhere and… one of them is a tree."_

 _"What?"_ She looked at the daughter of Apollo in confusion.

 _"It's a long story, he's…"_ Fu looked pained, _"he was turned into a tree to keep him and a girl alive, but the tree is… it's been poisoned."_

"What are you doing?" Percy finally asked, eyeing the fox strangely.

Fu eyed Percy strangely, "Percy, this is Kokatsu, a… friend." She eyed the fox who was frozen from her previous news, "she can act as a translator for Anchor here, until he is proficient in English."

"How?"

"Well, she… translates." She eyed Percy like he was an idiot.

"I don't speak Japanese."

"Ah, that might be a bit of a problem for you." She eyed the newer fox uncomfortably, "go on, I've to talk with Kokatsu here, tell her about Nar - Anchor's problems."

"But shouldn't he be here for-"

"Go, Percy."

And so, he left, Fu showed Kokatsu the tree and explained a bit about what happened, how Thalia and Parrot held their ground here and died but were saved. Percy didn't pay much attention to this, choosing to follow Fu's advice and went back to his cabin.

Eventually Annabeth came to get him and asked if he wanted to help with the chariot races, they were worried about the tree, but they had no solutions, in the meantime, they would compete. So, they set about designing their chariot, the Athena and Poseidon cabin's working together.

An even stranger duo was working together at the same time, with Annabeth and Percy keeping an eye on them: Anchor and Whiskers.

The two may have the desire to tear each other apart as they sat in the others presence, but Percy and Annabeth ensured they didn't attack one and other. Whiskers was helping teach Anchor to speak English, with Annabeth and Percy chiming in and helping when they thought necessary, the former more than the later.

This continued for a while, the quartet came to enjoy each other's company, even Whiskers admitted to enjoying the sessions, though not to anyone but Annabeth.

One morning the four were sitting by the canoe lake sketching designs, Whiskers and Anchor in Annabeth's and Percy's laps. Everything was fine, until some kids from Aphrodite's cabin walked by and asked if Percy needed to borrow some eyeliner for his eye... "Oh sorry, eyes."

As they walked away laughing, Annabeth grumbled, "Just ignore them, Percy. It isn't your fault you have a monster for a brother."

"He's-" He snapped, before taking a breath. "Never mind." He couldn't stop thinking about his sister's words. "Don't call him a monster though."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Technically, he is a monster."

Whiskers seemed to realise this wouldn't end well and tried to nip it in the bud. "Annie-"

But he was ignored. "You let him into camp, you must trust him a bit." Percy said.

Her eyes hardened, and she glared. "To save your life! And he didn't even get there in time." She gave him an apologetic look, "I'm… I'm sorry, Percy, I didn't expect Poseidon to claim him. Cyclopes are the most deceitful, treacherous-"

"He is not!" He sat up and looked her in the eye. "What have you got against Cyclopes, anyway?"

Annabeth's ears turned pink, before she looked back to her sketches.

"Just forget it," she said. "Now, the axle for this chariot-"

"Yes, why don't we talk about-"

"You're treating him like he's this horrible thing," Percy said, again ignoring the fox. "He saved my life against the Last… Canadians, and he tried to help against the Calcio… Bulls."

Annabeth threw down her pencil and stood up, Whiskers adjusted himself to go to her shoulder. "Then maybe you should design a chariot with him."

"Wait no-"

"Maybe I should."

"Guys-"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

She stormed off, with Whiskers trying to placate her, leaving Percy to regret and Anchor to just look at him in confusion.

"Percy." Anchor said, it was one of the first things he had learned from the other fox, who kind of decided that it was tradition for them to learn names first. "Wrong?"

The demi-god sighed, "nothing, to worry about." He petted the fox behind his ears causing him to purr.

The days passed quickly after that, Anchor began to learn more English and had the vocabulary of a one year old but was learning quickly. Not much else happened, well other than the jinchuuriki giving Percy dirty looks when he passed, it seemed Yagura told them about Anchor's past with him.

The only other thing of note was Percy's first flying lesson with Silena Beauregard, one of the nicer girls from Aphrodite's cabin. She explained that there was only one immortal winged horse named Pegasus, who still wandered free somewhere in the skies, but over the eons he'd sired a lot of children, none quite so fast or heroic, but all named after the first and greatest.

At the start, Percy wasn't too keen to go flying, his uncle Zeus was never fond of children of his brother entering his domain. But riding a winged horse felt different. Probably because his dad had created horses out of sea foam, so the pegasi were sort of neutral territory. He could also understand them just like he could any other horse.

Everything was going great with the pegasi, until Tyson wanted to ride the 'chicken ponies,' too, even the pegasi weren't too fond of monsters and got skittish whenever he approached. Percy tried to get them to calm down, telling them that Tyson wouldn't hurt them, but they didn't seem to believe him, and that made Tyson cry.

Yagura wasn't happy with that, and, after Tyson ran back to the cabin bawling his eyes out, she had gone out and yelled at the pegasi. The entire conversation was very serious, but the campers who gathered around to watch only saw the daughter of Poseidon yelling at the winged horses, who all had their heads bowed in acceptance of the daughter of the sea's words.

The pegasi still wouldn't let Tyson ride them, but they stopped running off when he came close and even let him pet them, which caused the big guy to spend an entire afternoon giggling to himself.

Another good thing that came the cyclops's way was being introduced to Hana, and Beckendorf who had no problems with Tyson. They and the rest of the Hephaestus cabin accepted him since the blacksmith god had always worked with Cyclopes in his forges, so they took Tyson down to the armoury to teach him metalworking.

Beckendorf said he was a natural, and that he'd have Tyson crafting magic items like a master in no time. Hana was silent, but nodded along with her brother's words, her covered face not giving any idea about her thoughts on the matter.

In the evenings, he did border patrol with the Demeter cabin and Fu, who was on duty. Even after Tantalus had insisted they forget trying to protect the camp, the jinchuuriki had kept their schedule and worked around everyone else's free time. Though they were the ones to take the longest shifts and the most shifts since they rarely bothered going to any of the classes.

They all sat at the top of Half-Blood Hill and watched the dryads come and go, singing to the dying pine tree. Satyrs brought their reed pipes and played nature magic songs, and for a while the pine needles seemed to get fuller. The flowers on the hill smelled a little sweeter and the grass looked greener. But as soon as the music stopped, the sickness crept back into the air.

The whole hill seemed to be infected, dying from the poison that had sunk into the tree's roots. Before the nature spirits could try again though, Fu stopped them.

"What are you doing exactly?" She asked, eyeing the pipes.

"It's just a nature spell, I doubt you'd understand." A haughty satyr said.

She hummed in thought, and then looked to the tree. She grew wings and fluttered around the trunk like a fairy for a bit before settling down at its base and smiling softly.

"I have an idea that might heal her, but I will need to test it." She bit her lip and looked to Percy with a strange expression. "Do you know where Anchor is?"

Percy felt confused as all the attention went to him, "not really, probably at his den, or with Tyson in the forges." Most of the time he brought the fox with him where he went, but since being anywhere near the tree caused him to freeze up, he left his vulpine companion to himself.

"I'll test it when my shift ends. I'll have to talk to Yagura about it as well." She muttered to herself but wouldn't say any more about it.

He still had dreams about Grover, nothing but bad news from what he got from them.

The night before the race, Tyson and Percy finished the chariot. Tyson had made the metal parts in the armoury's forges, and Percy had sanded the wood and put the carriage together. It was blue and white, with wave designs on the sides and a trident painted on the front. After all that work, it seemed only fair that Tyson would ride shotgun, though the horses wouldn't like it, and Tyson's extra weight would slow them down.

At the last minute, Yagura came to see it, she looked tired from border patrol, but smiled happily at the sight of the finished chariot.

"It looks great guys." She said.

Tyson grinned happily at the praise and wrapped her in a big hug, "you think so?"

"Yeah, I'm sure you'll do great tomorrow." She said, "I wish I could come and watch, but the rest of the camp will be there, it would be too good an opportunity for monsters to get in."

She failed to notice the look Tyson gave her at her careless use of the 'm' word, it was probably because she was so tired. As soon as she reached her bunk, she collapsed into it and slept like a log.

As the other two were turning in for bed, Tyson was silent. He lay down in his bunk and was quiet in the dark. His body was way too long for his bed. When he pulled up the covers, his feet stuck out the bottom. "I am a monster." He muttered to himself.

"Don't say that."

"It is okay. I will be a good monster. Then you will not have to be mad."

After a moment of trying to think of what to say, Percy finally spoke up. "It's just... I never had a half-brother before." His voice sounded close to cracking. "Sure, I had Yagura, but she's new too, and you and she are different. Not just that she's a demi-god, its… its confusing. I guess it's just because she's older, and kind of knows what she's doing, but I… It's really different for me. And I'm worried about the camp. And another friend of mine, Grover... he might be in trouble. I keep feeling like I should be doing something to help, but I don't know what."

Tyson said nothing.

"I'm sorry," Percy told him. "It's not your fault. I'm just kind of lost."

There was a deep rumbling sound, Percy realised it was Tyson snoring.

With a sigh he finished up. "Good night, big guy." And closed his own eyes.

Percy woke with a start. It was early morning. Tyson was staring down, Yagura was already gone by the looks of her bunk.

"Are you okay?" Tyson asked.

The morning of the race was hot and humid. Fog lay low on the ground like sauna steam. There were a couple of birds roosting in the trees—fat grey-and-white pigeons, except they didn't coo like regular pigeons. They made this annoying metallic screeching sound like a submarine radar.

The racetrack had been built in a grassy field between the archery range and the woods. Hephaestus's cabin had used the bronze bulls, which Hana rebuilt, to plough an oval track in a matter of minutes.

There were rows of stone steps for the spectators, Tantalus, the satyrs, a few dryads, and all of the campers who weren't participating. The only ones missing were Mr. D, who never got up before ten o'clock and the jinchuuriki.

"Right!" Tantalus announced as the teams began to assemble. A naiad had brought him a big platter of pastries, and as Tantalus spoke, his right hand chased a chocolate eclair across the judge's table. "You all know the rules. A quarter-mile track. Twice around to win. Two horses per chariot. Each team will consist of a driver and a fighter. Weapons are allowed. Dirty tricks are expected. But try not to kill anybody!" Tantalus smiled like they were all naughty children. "Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s'mores at the campfire for a week! Now ready your chariots!"

Beckendorf led the Hephaestus team onto the track. They had a sweet ride made of bronze and iron, even the horses, which were magical automatons like the Colchis bulls.

The Ares chariot was blood-red and pulled by two grisly horse skeletons. Clarisse climbed aboard with a batch of javelins, spiked balls, caltrops, and a bunch of other nasty toys.

Apollo's chariot was trim and graceful and completely gold, pulled by two beautiful palominos. Their fighter was armed with a bow, though he had promised not to shoot regular pointed arrows at the opposing drivers.

Hermes's chariot was green and kind of old-looking, as if it hadn't been out of the garage in years. It didn't look like anything special, but it was manned by the Stoll brothers, that was worrisome enough by itself, but they each had grin that they only wore when they were up to no good.

The last two teams were manned by the Athena cabin, and the Aphrodite cabin, who had made an alliance with the Demeter children. This would normally be considered strange, but apparently, Yugito was having a good influence on her siblings and had arranged something with Katie Gardner, who had a grin to match the Stolls own.

Their chariot looked like a tree, a still living tree moulded into the rough estimate of a chariot with soil compressed on the soil and moss around the sides. Katie and Selina were riding, Selina bringing in two Pegasi, who sent apologetic looks to Percy, saying something about offering them more sugar cubes if the rode for her.

Before the race began, Percy tried to approach Annabeth and tell her about a dream about Grover. She perked up when he mentioned the satyr, but when he told her what he'd said, she seemed to get distant again, suspicious.

"You're trying to distract me," she decided.

"What? No! I'm not!"

"Oh, right! Like Grover would just happen to stumble across the one thing that could save the camp."

"What do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes. "Go back to your chariot, Percy."

"I'm not making this up. He's in trouble, Annabeth."

She hesitated. Trying to decide whether or not to trust him. Despite their occasional fights, they had been through a lot together. And she would never want anything bad to happen to Grover.

"Percy, an empathy link is so hard to do. I mean, it's more likely you really were dreaming."

"The Oracle," he said. "We could consult the Oracle."

Annabeth frowned. Before she could answer, the conch horn sounded.

"Charioteers!" Tantalus called. "To your mark!"

"We'll talk later," Annabeth told him, "after I win."

As he walked back to his chariot, he took note of the strange pigeons in the trees now, screeching like crazy, making the whole forest rustle. Nobody else seemed to be paying them much attention, but they seemed off. Their beaks glinted strangely. Their eyes seemed shinier than regular birds. Though there weren't too many of them at the moment, more were slowly trickling in.

Tyson was having trouble getting the horses under control. Percy had to calm them down, but they weren't in the mood to listen is seemed.

He's a monster, lord! they complained.

He's a son of Poseidon, Percy mentally told them. Just like me.

No! They insisted. Monster! Horse-eater! Not trusted!

I'll give you sugar cubes at the end of the race. Percy said, realising there was no way to get through this without bribing them.

Sugar cubes?

Very big sugar cubes. And apples. Did I mention the apples?

Finally, they agreed to get in the harness.

Percy took the reins and maneuvered the chariot to the starting line and gave Tyson a ten-foot pole telling him that his job was to push the other chariots away if they got too close, and to deflect anything they might try to throw at us.

"No hitting ponies with the stick," he insisted.

"No," Percy agreed and, seeming to realis something, continued, "or people, either, if you can help it. We're going to run a clean race. Just keep the distractions away and let me concentrate on driving."

"We will win.'" He beamed.

As the chariots lined up, more shiny-eyed pigeons gathered in the woods, they were starting to reach about a hundred or so. They still went unnoticed by most, but Percy could see Whiskers, Bandit and Anchor, staring at them in confusion, Whiskers was with one of Annabeth's sisters while one of the Aphrodite kids nabbed Anchor, not that he seemed to mind the petting. Bandit sat with one of Clarisse's sister.

Tantalus didn't look concerned, but he did have to speak up to be heard over the noise. "Charioteers!" he shouted. "Attend your mark!"

He waved his hand and the starting signal dropped. The chariots roared to life. Hooves thundered against the dirt. The crowd cheered.

Almost immediately there was a loud nasty crack. The Apollo chariot flipped over. The Hermes chariot had rammed into it, maybe by mistake, maybe not. The riders were thrown free, but their panicked horses dragged the golden chariot diagonally across the track. The Hermes team, Travis and Connor Stoll, were laughing at their good luck, but not for long. The Apollo horses crashed into theirs, and the Hermes chariot flipped too, leaving a pile of broken wood and four rearing horses in the dust.

Two chariots down in the first twenty feet.

Percy turned his attention back to the front. They were making good time, pulling ahead of Ares, but Annabeth's chariot was way ahead. She was already making her turn around the first post, her javelin man grinning and waving at us, shouting: "See ya!"

The Hephaestus chariot was starting to gain, too, with Demedite coming in just beside them, apparently unnoticed.

Beckendorf pressed a button, and a panel slid open on the side of his chariot. "Sorry, Percy!" he yelled. Three sets of balls and chains shot straight toward the wheels of the Poseidon chariot. They would've wrecked them completely if Tyson hadn't whacked them aside with a quick swipe of his pole. He gave the Hephaestus chariot a good shove and sent them skittering sideways, right into Demedite, who swerved to avoid.

"Nice work, Tyson!" Percy yelled as he looked back to see the damage.

Beckendorf looked like he was going to try and catch again, until Katie through a handful of something right at the Hephaestus chariot and it made an uncomfortable whining noise. The ground around them burst to life, bushes tangling their wheels together and bringing them to a halt.

Just as they were about to turn the corner, Tyson yelped and swung his stick upwards, Percy looked and saw one of the birds that had been on the trees swoop in. There were half a dozen hovering around the chariot, looking around, he saw they were going for each chariot now.

"Birds!" Tyson cried out.

In the Ares chariot, Clarisse barked an order to her fighter, who quickly threw a screen of camouflage netting over their basket. The birds swarmed around it, pecking and clawing at the fighter's hands as he tried to hold up the net, but Clarisse just gritted her teeth and kept driving. Her skeletal horses seemed immune to the distraction. The pigeons pecked uselessly at their empty eye sockets and flew through their rib cages, but the stallions kept right on running.

The spectators didn't have as many going after them, but there were a good few attacking what they could.

"Stymphalian birds!" Annabeth yelled. She slowed down and pulled her chariot alongside the Poseidon cabin, she sounded confused. "There should be more."

"No, I think this is enough." Percy said, swatting at the one that landed on his chariot.

"Tyson," Percy said, "we're turning around!"

"Going the wrong way?" he asked.

"Always," the son of Poseidon grumbled, but steered the chariot toward the stands.

Annabeth rode right next to them. She shouted, "Heroes, to arms!" And the campers that hadn't already, took out any weapons hidden on their person, come on, we all do it.

Percy held the reins in one hand and managed to draw Riptide as a half dozen birds dived at his face, their metal beaks snapping. He slashed them out of the air and they exploded into dust and feathers, but there were still more left. One nailed him in the back end and he nearly jumped straight out of the chariot.

The birds turned out to be little more than a nuisance, with so many campers, their numbers soon dwindled. The surprise was the only factor, maybe if there had been more birds, the fight would have lasted longer, but by now there were barely fifty left.

The archers from Apollo's cabin brought out their bows and arrows, ready to slay them

Clarisse has just pulled across the finish line at this point, completely unopposed, and seemed to notice for the first time that the birds were attacking the stands. She immediately drew her sword and charged for the stands, hoping there would be some left.

Finally, someone yelled out loud enough to be heard over the sound of fighting, "everybody cover their ears!" Without a thought, most of the campers followed the advice, those not adverse to thinking looked up at the speaker, one of the Apollo kids and immediately stopped thinking to do as they were told.

The kid brought his hand to his lips and let loose a high pitched whistle. Even with their hands over their ears, the noise reverberated through everything and the entire world seemed to bounce.

The demon pigeons went nuts. They flew around in circles, some fell straight to the ground, some were running into each other like they wanted to bash their own brains out. The camper stopped the noise and the Apollo archers finished them ins seconds.

There wasn't much damage in the end, the only things that were broken were the chariots, and most of that had been done before the birds arrived. The panic was only caused by the surprise that came from the attack, their simply weren't enough of them to do much.

"Bravo!" Tantalus said, but he wasn't looking at the Apollo kid who finished them off, or the campers who fought them at all. "We have our first winner!"

He walked to the finish line and awarded the golden laurels for the race to a stunned-looking Clarisse.

Then he turned and smiled at Percy and Annabeth. "And now to punish the troublemakers who disrupted this-"

Before he could continue, something flew down and landed in front of him, fearing another swarm of birds, the campers raised their weapons, but Fu just put her hands up.

"Sorry to interrupt." She didn't sound sorry interrupting Tantalus who fumed, "but there was a huge hoard of birds at the border. We've taken care of them, but a few might have gotten passed, so heads up." She then looked about at the chaos, "wow, this looked like it actually would have been fun to watch, but anyway, I should go back to the border." With that she flew off, leaving a very annoyed director.

(Los Angles)

Bianca packed her bags angrily. Not something that normally works out, but she somehow managed it. After her and her brothers argument, she hadn't spoke to him. He seemed to understand her need for space, so that was an upside, but that somehow made her angrier. How could he act like he cared like he didn't just admit he came into their lives because of Volpe.

Regardless, she was packing. He said that they were moving to Maine, apparently their stunt with the one eyed guys who attacked her had drawn attention to them. So they were moving to the other side of the country to lose any monsters who would be looking for them.

The fact that Utakata managed to tell her all this, without directly talking to her was very impressive. But apparently the time had come for them to finally talk. He stood in the doorway and knocked. Even though it was open.

"Can I come in."

She ignored him, giving him the silent treatment.

"We need to talk." He said, moving in and sitting on her bed to the right of her suitcase. Again she ignored him, choosing to continue packing like he wasn't there, he sighed and gently reached over to grab her wrists and turn her to face him.

She looked away, refusing to show him her eyes which were now growing wet of their own accord. Snatching her hands back and turning away.

"I'm not coming with you."

That got her to turn, she was shocked, her face probably showed it, but she was too numb to feel if her mouth was gaping, she just couldn't find the words to express the anger, the hate, the fear and the one she was trying to deny most, regret.

"I'm going to make a false trail, give you two time to get out of here, make sure none of them are on your trail." He set something on her bed, two somethings actually, two briefcases, one longer than the other which was more square in shape. "But I won't let you or Nico go out unprotected."

She still couldn't find the words.

He opened the longer one, inside was the name 'Nico' in beautiful gold handwriting, that worked horribly against her dyslexia, so it looked more like 'Coin'. Inside was a sword with a black blade, like the one her brother used, but bigger.

"This is for Nico." Utakata explained, "it was a gift from dad, you both got one. I know you're mad with me-"

"Mad with you?" Bianca sounded aghast, "mad with you? No, I'm furious with you. You lied to us, said we were your family-"

"You are my family."

"Then you wouldn't have even had to choose, you would have known that you have to look after your family, it is your duty."

"So you'd rather I look out for you for a sense of duty? Not care? Is that all family is to you? Is that all Nico is to you? A problem to look after? A lead weight?"

"Don't you dare say that? I love Nico, he isn't-"

"Then don't talk to me like I'm an idiot." He sighed, and took a seat on the bed, looking down at his hands. "I'm sorry, Bianca."

"Well you can take your apology and-"

"Listen to me, okay." He took a deep breath before speaking again, "when dad came to me, about looking after you, I was scared. I'd just lost my brother, and had only recently came back into contact with most of my family. When dad said I have a brother and sister, I just couldn't deal with it, how could I have another younger brother when I failed my last one." She could see tears coming down from behind his hair, "I didn't want to look after you because I was scared that I would mess up and lose you too."

Bianca was silent, simply unable to process this, Utakata took this as a bad sign and sighed.

"The sword is Nico's. I'm giving it to you, because I trust you to know when he needs to know." She blinked in shock and stared at the sword lying there in black velvet. "If, during your trip, you feel like he should know, or a monster attacks, give him the sword and tell him what I told you. If not, keep it for when you think he needs to know, but remember, his scent will get stronger if you tell him."

"I… I can't-"

"The other box is for you." Utakata interrupted, "I don't know what's in it, but I'm assuming it's a weapon of some kind. You might need it, though I hope you won't."

Bianca was silent, unable to say anything.

"Your ride will be here soon, give her my regards. She'll take you to where you need to go, and will explain anything you need to know, probably." He turned to go, but stopped, "another thing, if you run into any satyr's or half-bloods, play dumb. Don't let them know you know you're a half blood, and whatever you do, don't let them know you're a child of Hades. Try and keep your powers under wraps if you can, they're a dead give-away."

Before she could say anything else, he moved to the corner of the room and melted into a shadow.

She didn't move for a moment, just staring at the spot her brother had been, a fresh stream of tears rolled down her face, mirrored by the tears that fell down her brothers face as he emerged from the shadows just outside the house they had lived in for the past year.

Nico wondered into her room just as she closed his case.

"Hey sis, what's that?" He said.

Before she turned around she wiped away the remains of the tears, "nothing, just some old clothes. Are you packed?" She asked, hoping he didn't notice that her face was blotchy.

"Yeah. Have you seen Utakata?" Fresh tears threatened to spill.

"Yeah, he said that our ride would be here soon."

"Great." Nico said with a grin, "where is he?"

"Umm, Nico, there's been a change of plans." Bianca said, Nico looked up at her in confusion, mirroring the look Volpe does when he's confused, "Utakata isn't coming with us, he's making his own way."

"What? Why?"

"Not enough room in the car." A new voice said, startling the two, they looked to the doorway and saw a women in her fifties with a leather jacket and an evil grin, "I thought I was only taking three passengers, but he forgot to mention that you had a… pet. I'm your driver, I just ran into your brother on the way out, he's sorted his own way to Maine, so don't worry about him. My name is Alecto Nyx. Pleasure to meet you."

Bianca recognised the name, and the woman, she was the woman who brought them to the hotel, their parent's lawyer, but she was also Alecto, one of Hades torturers, Utakata had told her all about those under their father's employment.

"R-right, nice to meet you." Bianca said, hoping no one noticed the stutter, by the furies widening grin, she did. "Nico, why don't you help Mrs Nyx here with your bags, I just need to finish packing here. I'll be quick."

"It's Miss, but of course I'll help you with your stuff."

"Okay." Nico said, rushing out of the room and grabbing the fury by the hand, dragging her off, "hey, have you ever played Mythomagic, it's great, oh, do'ya wanna see my collection…"

Bianca managed a smirk as she imagined the expression on the furies face after being beaten by kid in Mythomagic. Finally, she steeled herself and opened her own case, the first thing she found was her name, written in the same way as Nico's had been.

Next, she found the contents of the case, a hat, and a set of daggers.

She lifted one of the daggers out, they were about as long as her forearms and were made of the same black metal as Nico's and Utakata's swords. Holding them just felt right, like an extension of her arms.

Next she took the hat out. It looked like a simple hat, the same style as her own green one, only in black. She looked at it in confusion for a moment before trying it on, it didn't feel particularly special, it felt like a normal hat, albeit a comfortable hat, but still just a normal hat. She looked back at the case, maybe she missed something, sure enough, there was a piece of paper that had been underneath the hat. On it was one simple word:

The Greek word for darkness. "Skotadi." She whispered.

Immediately she felt a change, first of all, the hat turned into a Greek style helmet, the sides grew down to her jaw and at the front, a small part grew to cover her nose. The helmet curved around the back around her head forming a perfect dome shape.

She looked to her mirror and nearly shrieked, she was scary, like to her. Her face was covered in shadows so none of her features could be made out, her clothes seemed darker, like they were made of shadows to the point she just looked like a silhouette. She took the helmet off and immediately her body went back to normal, but the helmet stayed a helmet. Looking at it now, she noticed that it looked bronze, and had a faint glow to it when it wasn't all shadowy.

In all honestly, to her it looked like that helmet the villain, Magneto, from the X-men comics she had started reading in the hotel. Yes she was a comic fan, they had been the most entertaining things she could remember, she still had her collection of 'Action Comics' back from when she was younger. Her collection had only grown in the casino, Nico wasn't the only one with a hobby.

She looked back to the piece of paper and turned it over, looking for more instructions, there were none. So she tried just saying 'skotadi' again, the helm shrank back into a hat. With a small smile she put it back in it's case, only now noticing that where it was lying was big enough to fit it, even when it was a helmet.

She finished packing her stuff and went to go outside with it. When she turned she came face to face with 'Miss Nyx' and nearly screamed.

"Sorry for startling you honey." She said, trying to suppress her smirk, "just came to help you with your bags."

"T-thank you." Bianca said as the woman lifted her suitcase, Bianca carried the two cases her brother had left her.

"I take it your brother has told you anything?"

"Yes, he said you could answer some questions."

The fury bit back a snarl and they came to the front door and walked to the car parked in the front. She placed the suitcase in the boot and Bianca did the same, "then you'd better sit up front." She said, "nothing more?"

"Umm, no."

"Are you sure? You will not be back here again." The fury said, eyeing the girl with a strange expression.

"…" It was just hitting her, this had been her home for the past year, and she would never see it again, she felt a sense of nostalgia looking at it now, finally she sighed and turned away, "no, nothing."

"Good, now, get in, we've a long ride ahead of us, and your brother is sure to have let out a lot." She said, hoping in the drivers seat, Bianca beside her. The fury turned and gave an almost unnoticeable nod out the window to the direction of the shadows just outside the house.

The back seats were separated from them by a lightly tinted window, she could see Nico and Volpe playing a game of Mythomagic in the back and bit back a snort.

"Okay," the fury began, "I guess we'll start from the beginning, in the beginning there was only Chaos..."

Back at the house, Utakata emerged from the shadows, watching the car drive off sadly. His eyes were still slightly red from earlier, but otherwise his face was emotionless.

He looked at the house, this was probably the first place he could actually call a home. Back in his original world, in the village hidden in the mist, he had no home, they moved him too often for him to be connected to somewhere. When he grew up, he lived between apartments on the whims of the council, he wasn't human, he was a weapon, and weapons don't have attachments.

When he escaped, he was on the run, he could never settle down anywhere. The closest had been the time he spent with Hotaru, his disciple. He supressed a smirk, he missed the girl, she had been a good friend, but when the time came, he had to leave.

When he spent time with his family as Sionnach, they sort of lived at home, but they were always moving. He had considered his family to be his home then, but never an actual place.

When they came here, it was once again back to running around, living in hotels, motels, camping, never spending a day in the same place. Always running, never looking back.

Then he found a home, with his sister and his brother, both had opened up to him. Let him in, accepted him. He had so many pleasant memories here, helping Nico and Bianca with homework he barely understood, cooking for them, both Bianca and Nico's birthdays, playing with Volpe.

As he looked on the building, he couldn't help but remember all this. But these were not important, the memories held here were just that. There would be no more memories here, but he would make more memories, he would ensure that his family was safe, he would bring Naruto back, and Bianca and Nico would finally get to meet them, then they'd meet the rest of the jinchuuriki. He was sure they would get along fine.

The best memories were yet to come.

Then he thought back to what had happened with Bianca. He didn't care if she didn't forgive him, he didn't care if she hated him, he would protect her, like she said, being a brother was a duty, but it was one he did proudly, he would not fail her or Nico.

With that he sent one more look to the house and brought his hands together, "Kai." He whispered and the house went up in flames. He was going to make sure the monsters stayed off Bianca's and Nico's trail. So he just sent out a beacon to everyone in L.A. anyone or anything would see the house aflame soon, and then he would go around destroying as many monsters as possible, but leaving a witness. He would force the eyes of every monster on him, and he would destroy them all.

He covered himself in a layer of mist to hide himself from the eyes of the mortals and made sure to stand right beside the nearest news anchor as she began her report.

"I'm standing here outside a home here in suburban L.A. where a fire has broken out. Authorities are unsure of the cause of the fire at this current moment, and authorities are having great difficulty dealing with the blaze. They have reported that so far no one has been injured, but authorities have found that the house belongs to one," the reporters eyes got cloudy and Utakata's smile grew, "son of Hades," a thick layer of mist made it so that to the mortals, the camera failed for a second, but to those who could see through the mist, they heard what was clearly given. A challenge.

Utakata grinned as he heard the lumbering steps of the first cyclops heading his way, with a grin he pulled his sword from the shadows.

(New Rome)

Garra sighed, today he was performing the ceremony, and he was getting nervous. He had talked to the others through the mind scape and learned more about the newly beginning war with Kronos. He informed Temari but said he couldn't give any reliable proof, mostly because of the fact he would have to expose the Greek demi-gods, and that was a big no-no.

So for now, even though both he and Temari knew what was going on, they couldn't tell the legion. Their only hope was that there would be proper evidence. Both knew that the senate would not accept the words of the probatio who told Temari about the situation. Furthermore, they had to find a way soon, before someone else found out and tells someone.

At the moment though, he just couldn't be bothered with worrying about that stressful problem, instead, he was worrying about the more pressing concern.

"One hour." He muttered.

He was wearing the traditional garments of a priest, though to be honest it looked an awful lot like the curtains of his room. And had with him the necessary equipment for a typical Roman wedding: a torch, water in a bowl and a sow.

Why he had to take care of the sow was another matter, the thing made a mess of every room it entered, and glared at him, as if to say 'I know you're going to kill me, but you have to wait until the wedding, and I'm going to mess your life up until then.'

He was looking forward to sacrificing the pig to his mother, one of the few things that had changed about the ceremony since the old days of Rome. It used to be a sacrifice to Terra, but over time it changed to Juno, it did make a bit more sense, even if Terra must be feeling a bit put out about it.

The ceremony was also going to take place in the temple of Juno, another small change, but that was only to fit the crowd that would come.

Still, he wasn't looking forward to this at all.

With a sigh, he pulled out his clipboard and made a checklist of everything, he'd already double checked and triple checked, but still, it didn't hurt to look over it again.

"Garra." A voice called, he looked to the entrance and found Temari standing there in a dress, not a particularly lavish one, but apparently it would be rude to show up in her normal armour to a wedding, she walked closer and smiled at him, "you look good." She said, smirking at him.

"Thanks, I always wanted to wear these, ever since I saw them as my curtains."

Her smirk faded and she looked a bit annoyed, "Kankuro told you?"

"W-what? These are actually-"

Temari interrupted him, "anyway, I just came to tell, you, I found proof." Her voice was serious, "I'll explain a bit more after the ceremony, but I will be telling the senate soon."

"How?"

"The Amazons, me and Kankuro ran into them a while ago, we hit it off and I've kept in contact with them, doesn't really matter, but they told me some of the monsters they capture have been talking about… him."

"Okay, so the senate will listen?"

"Yes, the information came from the current queen, the Amazons and Romans might not get along all the time, but we respect them, and they respect us in turn. They'll listen."

"Good. When will the legion hear of this?"

She bit her lip, "it depends, when I tell the senate, they may decide to keep this from the populace, it all depends on what my new 'partner' decides in the end."

"What will he do?"

"I'm not sure. The ceremony will start soon, we'll talk later. Good luck."

Everything was a blur up until everyone finally arrived for the wedding. Soon enough it started, the groom. The bride arrived in her own handmade dress, it was clear she had spent months on it, and it was beautiful. Immediately she went over to the fire and she lit the fire with her own torch, "aquae et ignis communicatio."

The wedding was a blur for Garra, but he thought he did alright, he didn't stumble his words or mis-speak the Latin. All in all it was a nice ceremony.

The reception was also pretty good, too, but Garra left early to talk to Temari about the more important topic of Saturn rising.

"You did great." She said to him now that he was out of the robes.

"Thanks. Where those really curtains?"

"Not important. Now, like I told you, I received word from the queen of the Amazons, telling me about what the monsters have been talking about. I'll talk to the senate and try and convince them of the threat, then we'll ready the legion for war."

"You know, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty easy." Garra said with a small grin.

"Well, let's see if we can do it then."

"Now?" Garra asked in surprise.

"Yes, of course now, I sent word to the senators earlier today about a meeting right after the wedding, I knew several senators would skip if it was during and I didn't want to miss my little brother's first wedding." She grinned and pinched his cheeks, he almost wished his sand would crush her, but apparently, since their mother gave him it, he couldn't hurt his siblings with it, without very good reason. When Kankuro found out, Garra clearly heard him mutter 'I wish I knew that growing up.'

"Well, you'd better get going."

"Yeah, wish me luck."

"Good luck." Garra smiled softly, as he stopped at the border and watched his sister disappear to the city and sighed at the reminder that he would never enter it, Terminus.

"Legionnaire." The statue grunted.

"Terminus."

"You know the rules."

"Of course."

"Good."

Garra wondered back down to the camp, he decided to skip the reception and go straight to bed, the mood gone at the statue, the reminder of what he was.

 **A/N: Another happy ending! Sigh, there needs to be a sarcasm button for righting or something. Anyway, that's anther chapter complete, yay!**

 **Now, here's something I want to say, and it's kind of important, so read if you were one of the readers who read the original version of the lightning thief, anyone else you're free to go.**

 **When I started writing the lighting thief segment of the story, I got a lot of hate for copying a lot of the original book, and lots of people were very nicely pointing out (flaming me in the comments) saying this. Now if you've followed the story up until now, which I'm going to assume you have, you know, since you're reading it, you'll have noticed it's not like this. That's because I completely re-wrote it.**

 **Now, I just want to say, that was planned... sort of.**

 **You see, what I wanted to do was a sort of butterfly effect sort of thing, where things slowly change in the story due to the addition of the new characters. Since there were very few changes before the lightning thief, I was keeping a lot of the dialogue the same and the story followed mostly the same patterns.**

 **I'm not going to lie, that was lazy of me, some of the times (a lot of the time) it would come across as lazily. But to be honest it was just because I wanted to try and keep as much to the books as possible.**

 **And not in the way that it may have seemed at the time.**

 **I know that in the other version it may have come across as lazy, but I hope in the newer version it isn't seen that way. I know I did keep a lot of the original dialogue in the newer one, but I did try and make a lot more changes and completely re-wrote the entire thing, the only things being kept the same being some scenes that I didn't see problems with.**

 **Now, back to what I was saying about keeping to the books. What I mean when I say that, is that I'm trying to keep to the canon up to the changes I make... I'm not sure if that makes much sense.**

 **Anyway, what I mean is, that if there are things that couldn't be affected by the presence of new characters, they aren't affected, like Nico and Biana being with the Locus eaters. I spent ages trying to figure out the exact date they went in for the conversation with Hades and Utakata but I found nothing relating to it in the books, just vague answers like 'the forties or thirties'.**

 **Eventually, I think I just decided to keep it vague. And do you know what, I recently found, to my knowledge, the only actual straight answer to when they went into the hotel:**

 **'May 1st... 1939!'**

 **Do you know where that is?**

 **That's in the stage play version, where Bianca gets a five second cameo in the song 'Drive' I mean... really? I only found this out a few weeks ago, and didn't even realise it was Bianca until I read the lyric version (by the way, if you haven't heard the soundtrack for the musical, it's on** **you tube** **, even if you don't like it, it is a lot of fun to listen to, at least to me (and it's better than the movie's, just saying.))**

 **Things like this** **makes it really hard to do things right.**

 **Another example of this is when I had to make up Bianca's birthday. I scored through the books, and looked it up where I could, but I just couldn't find anything. In the end I settle for making my own up, something I don't really feel comfortable doing.**

 **Anyway, there is a reason behind my doing this. And it's because, way back in Demi-jinchuuriki, I did none of this, hell, I very barely followed the Naruto** **story line** **and changed things on a whim. When I looked back on it, it just didn't feel right. I don't know. Anyway, because of that, I felt like I needed to do more of that in this book, so that I can at least keep one universe right.**

 **Now, to be honest, at this point, there will be very little chance of anything like the lighting thief version 1.1 happening again. It's behind us, and now that things have changed, the butterfly effect is in full... well effect.**

 **I'm not sure if you noticed, I mean, unless you were comparing it to the book at the same time I doubt you did. But in this chapter specifically, a lot of dialogue is completely different to the book. For example, in the book, Percy is angry at Annabeth for two reasons that lead to their fight, one that she said Tyson was his brother, and two that she called him a monster. Due to Yagura getting** **annoyed** **at Percy and yelling at him, Percy wasn't annoyed at Annabeth for calling him his brother, and is starting to accept Tyson, as his brother much earlier than he** **originally** **did.**

 **Another example is the fact that the Demeter and Aphrodite cabins (Demedite) were part of the race this time since Yugito had them work harder and... stuff.**

 **A slightly bigger thing, is the 'demon pigeon' attack is much less than the book due to the jinchuuriki on border duty, so only a handful get in, and the campers managed to fight them off easily. Also the use of the whistle thing.**

 **Anyway, now, that is that rant/** **explanation** **over with, I hope you accept it, or don't up to you, if you think I'm just making** **excuses... I don't really know what to say. The reason I didn't say all this at the end of the last book re-write was so that I would have some examples to back up my claims.**

 **Anyway, this has got to be the biggest author note I've ever done. Oh, on another note, I just want to say, this chapter was exactly 9000 words, or at least my word count said that. Right now (before author note(BAN)) it says it's at 9286, so my word count may be a bit off, but, what can you do?**

 **Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry for not updating in a while, but I have been swamped with** **coursework** **, my final submission was last** **Friday** **and for the days leading up to it I was pulling way too many all nighters trying to make everything good after half a year of procrastinating. A bit of advice, don't be an idiot and leave everything to last minute, it is not fun.**

 **Anyway, I'm only now recovered enough to actually look at my computer without finding a corner and crying from** **memories** **of downing cans and cans of monster, redbull, and boost. If you don't know what they are, they are pretty tasty, but not if you drink five of them in one night.**

 **That was last week, but I also had a ton more work to do, on top of the coursework, and then, half my teachers take the week off, so that was just... yeah. Anyway, I'm back now, but I wouldn't count on a reliable update for a while, my exams are getting scary close, and I am panicking. So just... I don't know, I might be able to get another update out some point next week, but until then I'm not sure, I have so much work to do, but I'll try and make time to get some more of this story done.**

 **Well, on with the story:**

So, Percy, Annabeth and Tyson were somehow responsible for the birds attacking. Yagura sighed as she sat at the campfire. Her idiot of a brother had ended up in trouble, sure he hadn't done anything wrong, but still, trust him to be the one with the blame, he must have pissed off Tyche at some point. Now he and Tyson, along with the daughter of Athena were in the kitchens cleaning everything up.

Thinking about it, it was to be expected. Maybe this was some form of petty vengeance against her for embarrassing him, or maybe he just has a vendetta against Percy. Whatever it is, Percy had to deal with it now.

The Apollo campers were singing, but even they seemed pretty down. Even though the attack wasn't bad, it proved something. The monsters could get through. Even with the border patrol, there would always be some creature that would slip through the cracks.

Percy and his gang eventually showed up, he sat on the other side, not seeming to notice Yagura, probably just the poor lighting of the fire. The normally enormous fire that could, on a good day, be seen by nearly everywhere in camp was now coloured a depressing grey, not warm enough to stop the shivers from some campers and barely big enough to be seen by some smaller kids.

Dionysus left early, after a few songs, muttering something about how even pinochle with Chiron had been more exciting than this. Then he gave Tantalus a distasteful look and headed back toward the Big House.

When the last song was over, Tantalus said, "Well, that was lovely!" He came forward with a toasted marshmallow on a stick and tried to pluck it off, real casual. But before he could touch it, the marshmallow flew off the stick. Tantalus made a wild grab, but the marshmallow committed suicide, diving into the flames.

Tantalus turned back toward the campers, smiling coldly. "Now then! Some announcements about tomorrow's schedule."

"Sir," Percy said, Yagura sighed, someday he would learn to stop digging himself into more trouble.

Tantalus's eye twitched as he turned on the son of Poseidon. "Our kitchen boy has some-thing to say?"

No one laughed, a few Ares kids smiled but kept quiet. He stood and looked at the daughter of Athena as she stood up with him.

"We have an idea to save the camp."

Dead silence, except for the crackling of the fire which exploded into yellow.

"Indeed," Tantalus said blandly. "Well, if it has anything to do with chariots-"

"The Golden Fleece," Percy said. "We know where it is."

As the flames grew to orange, Yagura remembered what Chiron had taught them about the fleece, it should be able to help. But how did Percy know where it was?

Tantalus moved to speak but Percy spoke quicker, telling the camp that Grover found it, on Polyphemus island. Annabeth then moved and told them what it could do, causing the flames crescendo.

"The Fleece can save the camp," she concluded. "I'm certain of it."

"Nonsense," said Tantalus. "We don't need saving."

"Silence," Yagura said, standing and moving into the light so Percy could see her, "do you have an exact location? The Sea of Monsters is pretty big from what I understand."

"Yes." Percy said. Annabeth leaned forward and whispered something, he nodded, back to her, "30, 31, 75, 12."

Yagura blinked in confusion, "sailing coordinates?"

"Yeah." He shuffled a bit, "I, uh, learned them in social studies."

Yagura smiled slightly and even Annabeth gave him an appraising look. "30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west. He's right! The Grey Sisters gave us those coordinates. That'd be somewhere in the Atlantic, off the coast of Florida. The Sea of Monsters. We need a quest!"

The campers took up the chant. "We need a quest! We need a quest!"

The flames rose higher, reaching the height of some of the smaller trees.

Tantalus looked like he wanted to say something but Yagura sent him a look, he backed down.

"WE NEED A QUEST! WE NEED A QUEST!"

Tantalus sent a glare to Yagura before turning to Percy with one of equal intensity. "Fine!" Tantalus shouted, his eyes blazing with anger. "You brats want me to assign a quest?"

"YES!"

"Very well," he agreed. "I shall authorize a champion to undertake this perilous journey, to retrieve the Golden Fleece and bring it back to camp. Or die trying."

"I will allow our champion to consult the Oracle!" Tantalus announced. "And choose two companions for the journey. And I think the choice of champion is obvious." Tantalus looked at Annabeth and Percy with a burning glare. "The champion should be one who has earned the camp's respect, who has proven resourceful in the chariot races and courageous in the defence of the camp. You shall lead this quest... Clarisse!"

The fire flickered a thousand different colours. The Ares cabin started stomping and cheering, "CLARISSE! CLARISSE!"

Yagura sent him a glare, she knew what he was doing.

Clarisse stood up, looking stunned. Then she swallowed, and her chest swelled with pride. "I accept the quest!"

"Wait!" Percy shouted, just like she thought, Tantalus may have been a fool, but he was a smart fool. "Grover is my friend. The dream came to me."

"Sit down!" yelled one of the Ares campers. "You had your chance last summer!"

"Yeah, he just wants to be in the spotlight again!" another said.

Clarisse glared at him. "I accept the quest!" she repeated. "I, Clarisse, daughter of Ares, will save the camp!"

The Ares campers cheered even louder. Annabeth protested, and the other Athena campers joined in. Everybody else started taking sides-shouting and arguing and throwing marshmallows. It was starting to look like pure Chaos until Tantalus shouted, "Silence, you brats!"

He tried to sound scary, but Yagura had dealt with worse than him and just sent him a glare.

"Sit down!" he ordered. "And I will tell you a ghost story."

"Now is not the time for that." Yagura said, still glaring at him, he tried to glare back, but she wasn't affected by him. "We need to figure out how the quest will work. I suggest a cabin councillor meeting."

She turned to Percy and gave him a sympathetic look, "Tantalus, since you seem completely unqualified, unhelpful and generally unnecessary, why don't you stay here and try to scare children with your ghost stories, meanwhile, the rest of us will deal with the serious issue your incompetence has wrought."

Silence.

Then Yagura just left, Tantalus was stunned, the campers even more so. No one would have ever talked to Chiron like that, and it did just as Yagura had planned. This man wasn't Chiron, he didn't deserve respect, he wouldn't get any, he was all bark and no bite.

After a few minutes the head councillors stood and followed Yagura, Percy went with them, running to catch up with Yagura.

"Yagura… that was-"

"Bring Tyson back to bed, Percy." Yagura said, not turning to face him.

"What, but you called a councillor meeting, I-"

"You are not a councillor." She sighed to herself, "I know we never really sorted it out between us, but right now, we only need one child of Poseidon, and, no offence, but I have more experience than you."

"I-but… Grover's my-"

"The quest is not to find Grover, it is to find the Golden Fleece." She stopped and turned to him, "look, I know you want to be here, but right now, we need to prioritise camp's safety, and your emotional attachment to Grover will only make this harder to plan."

"How do you know about the empathy link?" He looked completely at a loss.

"Empathy link?" She shared his confusion.

"Yeah, satyr link, he made it to keep in contact, it's how he appeared in my dreams."

"I did not know about that, I just said emotional connection, you are friends with him, at the moment, that will affect your performance in the mission-quest." She shook her head, hoping he didn't catch her slip up.

"Mission?" He looked confused before the rest of the sentence seemed to get him, "wait, you don't think I-"

"Look, Percy, now is not the time. You should go back to the cabin," she rubbed her temples, "I don't know what to do, but right now, you being here for the meeting would just complicate things. Is there anything else you haven't said that would be helpful on the quest?"

"…No."

"Then go back to the campfire and bring Tyson to bed, I'll tell you what happens at the meeting when I get back, and if I don't, I'm sure your friend Annabeth will tell you."

She sighed as he dejectedly walked back to the fire, before turning and walking back to the big house.

When the others finally made it, she turned to Clarisse, "go talk to the Oracle."

The girl didn't question her, simply turning and marching up the stairs. The councillors all gathered around the ping pong table, all shifting awkwardly. No one spoke for a bit before Annabeth decided to break the silence.

"Why did you send Percy away?"

Of course, of course the daughter of Athena would have run into him on his way back to the campfire. "He isn't the councillor of the Poseidon cabin."

She stared at Yagura harder, analysing every move, but she didn't say anymore, she didn't need to, Yagura already knew what she would ask. Apparently, Annabeth breaking the silence opened the others up to chatting aimlessly. While they did so, Yagura decided it was best if they brought in an expert for figuring out what was going on, so she semi-entered the mindscape, and got Roshi's attention.

'Roshi, could you hop in my mind and keep an eye on everything, see if you can figure anything out.' She asked mentally.

'Sure, but do you not want me here?'

'No… I already sent Percy away, your sister would tell him and he would feel even worse about not being brought here.'

'Right, so the daughter of Ares has gone to get her prophecy?'

'Yes, she should be back-'

The chatter died as Clarisse appeared. They all stared at her. She seemed to be a bit dazed, but focused when she noticed all the eyes on her.

"Well?" Yagura asked.

"She said I'll get it." She answered gruffly.

Most of the other councillors seemed to sag in relief, but Yagura and Annabeth stared at her expectantly. Yagura under Roshi's orders.

"Most prophecies are more than one line." Annabeth said.

The girl glared, but gave in, "You shall sail the iron ship with the warriors of bone; You shall find what you seek and make it your own; But despair for your life entombed within stone; And…" She looked around at the faces of the other campers before sighing, "fail without friends, to fly home alone."

Silence again, somehow this was worse than the original silence. Finally, Yagura spoke up, "so you're not taking my boat?" The others looked at her, so she elaborated, "my boat isn't iron, as far as I'm aware, and I don't know many warriors of bone who'd man it."

"Right… so?" Conor Stoll asked in confusion.

'We can send another group in, increase or chances for success, they can scout the islands looking for Polyphemus, and then leave before the others, if it's a trap.'

"So, we can send more than one group to locate the fleece," Yagura said, the others looked ready to argue, but Yagura continued, "I know it is not normally done, but my boat can probably get someone there faster than whatever iron one there is. It is unlikely that this ship will succeed, but there is a chance that someone has other plans about this quest." Annabeth's eyes widened in recognition, while the others didn't seem to understand. She elaborated for Roshi.

"What do you mean?" Travis asked.

"The tree has been poisoned, and as far as we, and by default, our enemies are concerned, there is only one cure." Yoshi said.

"You think it's a trap?" Annabeth asked.

"You don't?" Yagura raised an eyebrow, "if I wanted something from somewhere as dangerous as the Sea of Monsters, I'd want someone to get it for us, and if that someone was my enemy, I'd want them to get it even more, if they get it, I get it, if they don't, enemy down."

"Wait, wait, wait," Conor said, waving his hands, "you think that this is a trap, so you're going to… spring it?"

"Yes, under more… controlled circumstances with less risk." Yoshi said again, Yagura looked around at the others.

"So, who are you bringing?" Annabeth asked Clarisse.

"I… don't know."

"Take time to think about it." Annabeth advised, "being someone you trust."

"I… yeah." She looked uncomfortable, "who will you bring… I mean, I assume it'll be you?" She asked Yagura.

"I don't know, I need to be there, if it is to be a fast trip, only Percy and I… and maybe Tyson could drive it to its full potential, and I don't think it would be wise to bring too many people, maybe two. I also don't want to leave the camp without enough warriors to defend it."

"Right, so, none of the other... you guys?" Conor says, sounding confused.

"Yes," Yagura said, "I don't mean to belittle anyone else, but the nine-six of us have probably got the most experience in fighting-"

"How?" Castor, son of Dionysus asked, the others just looked at him, "well, I mean… how can you have much more experience than the rest of us? You aren't much older than the rest of us, and we've been fighting most of our lives."

Yagura looked at the child of Dionysus, who was getting ready to bolt out of there, finally she just sighed, "I am older than I look."

"Yeah but-"

"As in, like decades."

Everyone except Annabeth looked shocked, Yagura gave her a questioning look.

"Fu mentioned something about it." She muttered, "but I didn't know if she was…"

"Right."

"But how does it work?" Annabeth asked, the others didn't seem to be surprised, but considering they live in a summer camp run by a zombie and a god, it wasn't the most unrealistic thing.

"Don't know." Yagura said, "we didn't exactly ask, it didn't seem like the most important thing when we woke up some place we didn't recognise."

"Wait-"

"Unimportant, all you need to know I'm a decade or two older than I look," she chuckled, "don't really remember what I was before now to be honest."

"And the others?"

"Mostly the same."

"Right, so…" Pollux began, "who are you going to bring?"

"Maybe a child of Apollo, we'll be on my boat, so an archer would be helpful." Lee Fletcher nodded, "we're happy to help."

"Right, we'll sort the rest out tomorrow morning." Annabeth said, looking at the clock, "early start and finalise everything then."

The others nodded and moved to leave, Yagura moved to talk to Annabeth but she was already long gone. She sighed and decided not to worry about that.

"I need to get some sleep." She muttered as she moved to the Poseidon cabin, a short walk later and she collapsed into her bed, not noticing the fact that the beds that were usually occupied with her brothers were worryingly absent. She drifted off into the realm of Morpheus in moments, for the most peaceful moment she would have for some time.

(Pasadena)

Utakata grunted as he tore his sword from a monster that strongly refused to become a sandcastle. The cyclops in question was probably the biggest the son of Hades had ever seen, easily towering over the bungalows dotted around the suburban neighbourhood. His size may have been the reason he was currently not making a small desert right about now, no matter where the demi-god hit, it just didn't do enough damage to keep him down.

"Tasty food stop biting!" The creature roared as it swat at him with a palm the size of a Toyota.

Utakata dived into the shadows, reappearing behind the monster and swiping its Achilles heel, it roared and stomped backwords but the demigod was gone. The creature finally fell to one knee, it seemed he finally did something, the monster roared, and he lunged at its neck. With a swipe, he cut through the monster's equivalent to a jugular, it gurgled for a second before falling forward and exploding into a sandstorm.

Utakata panted as he landed back to the ground. That appeared to be the last of them for now, even though everything was going to plan, it was a bad plan. So far, he had fought thirty different groups of monsters.

That was not easy, even for him.

The fact that he was still standing was amazing, any other man would have collapsed at this point, but he kept going. Thoughts of forgiveness, from both Naruto and Bianca, kept him going.

With a grunt he stood up and began walking again. He had to make sure nothing could trail him, then he would go to Maine and meet up with Alecto and his siblings. From there he wasn't really sure, he wanted Bianca to… no he needed Bianca to forgive him.

It wasn't intentional, he never meant to hurt her. To be honest, when he was given the chance to protect them, he was terrified, but now… they were family. He needed to protect them.

With that thought he turned around and pulled out his pipe, gently blowing an inky black sphere of darkness, not a bubble, not anymore.

With a sigh he stepped into it, seeming to melt into darkness then the bubble took off. He wasn't sure if the shadows were protecting him from Zeus's wrath, hopefully he just didn't notice, even then, the sphere never went more than a few metres from ground level.

Even inside the darkness, the demi-god could see with perfect clarity, it was something he had never really appreciated until he was in a bubble of darkness, but the shadows just didn't bother him. He passed over a few mortals, none of them looked up, even when the shadow passed over them.

He smirked as he spotted his next target, they hadn't noticed him yet, but they seemed to have caught the scent of some demi-gods. Whether it was his siblings or not was probably about fifty-fifty, but he wasn't taking that chance.

The demigod fell from the sky right onto one of the monsters, another cyclops, they must have been pretty common here, and decapitated it in one strike. He grinned as the others growled, a single thought going through his mind as he stared them down. 'They're trying to attack my family.'

With that thought, his grin darkened and he launched himself at the other cyclops, stabbing it in the chest before falling into its long shadow and popping out behind his friend. His hand went swinging without the sword still in the second cyclops chest, but just before his empty hand connected with the third monsters back, which, was facing away from the light, the second monster fell forward, the sword disappearing into the shadow beneath it.

His hand struck the monster, and came back with a sword, he changed his grip to that of a knife and slammed the blade right were the kidney would be, and cut across to the other kidney, severing the spine. Before the monster dissolved, he threw the sword at the next cyclops, aiming for the throat. The monster was quick though and raised his hand to stop it.

It wailed as sword went mostly through its palm, the end of the blade sticking out of its palm, and then made the mistake of lowering its hand into the shadows, where the demi-god lunged for his sword, tearing it out and cutting off the limb, before moving on to the unprotected stomach, slicing through it. Then he was gone, disappearing into the shadow of the falling monster.

He re-appeared right out of the shadow of the final monster, emerging head first and in moments the blade was jammed in the neck of the monster.

With a sigh he glanced to the sky, the sun dipping down over the horizon, he should probably be going now, the monsters wouldn't find his siblings now, they were probably too scared of him now.

He smiled before making his decision. He raised his pipe to his lips and blew into it, the bubble once more appearing, he sank into and directed it to his next destination.

Even with Alecto driving them, and her taking a few shortcuts along the way, it would still be a few days before they reached Maine. Maybe he could visit camp, after all, his way was much quicker, all he had to do was cut through the land of the dead, maybe chat with dad for a bit and get out at the doors of Orpheus.

He smiled as he went in the direction of the D.O.A. recording studio. He would be with his siblings soon.

(Road to Maine)

The silence was starting to get to Bianca

After the Fury had told her the history of pretty much everything, she had gone quiet. Anytime Bianca asked questions, she was given very brief answers:

"Where are we going?"

"Maine."

"How long until we're there?"

"Eighty hours."

"Well we be making any stops for food?"

"No."

"When will we eat?"

"There's sandwiches in the back."

"What's it like working for d- Hades?"

At this the Fury turned and gave her a wide grin, "fun." And then turned back to the road.

That was the point she gave up with questioning her. She didn't want to turn the radio on, not knowing what the Fury's reaction would be, so there was a long uncomfortable silence.

She had taken a few of the sandwiches, ham… she hoped, and made sure both Nico and Volpe ate them. She gingerly offered a few to Alecto, but she just glared at them for a few seconds and said she wasn't hungry.

Eventually, after a few hours of awkward silence, she decided to go to sleep. A glance back showed that Nico and Volpe had both dozed off, Nico slumped at the window and Volpe in his lap. A quick glance to their driver, she was concentrated on driving, not looking tired at all.

"I'm going to sleep for a while." Bianca said, the Fury simply nodded, not taking her eyes of the road, so the demi-god leaned over the window, like her brother and entered the realm of Morpheus.

And promptly opened her eyes to find herself in front of a golden sarcophagus. She could tell it wasn't real, but it certainly felt real, she looked down at her hands but found she couldn't move. There wasn't much in the room but the coffin, in fact, there was nothing, no-one and no-where. The sarcophagus seemed to give off a glow, a dim glow that only illuminated itself.

'Another one.' A voice humorously chuckled out, 'my how my children cast their seed.' The voice was terrifying, wherever she was dropped a few degrees on its first word.

'Hmm,' the voice breathed, before it chuckled again, 'you will serve nicely, if the boy fails his task again.' It chuckled again, and she felt the desire to run, to turn her back and find somewhere, anywhere to hide.

'But, I'm getting ahead of myself.' The voice said, 'come closer, child.' She could feel the grin in his words, and it made her even more afraid of whatever creature was speaking. She felt like something was tugging her, pulling her closer to the coffin, in her fear she managed to pull against it.

The voice chuckled, but this time it was clearly fake, almost angry, 'I said,' Bianca felt the tugging feeling come back, but this time stronger, she couldn't begin to fight back, 'come closer.' She was now right in front of the sarcophagus, she could make out the tiny details, there were things depicted on the golden surface, around the edges were people dying, being cut down, cities burning, on the top, there was a man with a scythe, cutting people down like wheat.

'Not yet I think.' The voice said, the sarcophagus hummed, 'soon.' For a moment Bianca felt like she could move freely again, her first instinct was to run, but she soon found she wasn't as free as she thought.

'But, I think it wouldn't hurt to take a peek.' Bianca's hands moved on their own, like a puppet on someone else's string. She pushed the lid off the coffin and a glow came from the gap, she begged her body to stop, her heart beat like a drum and her breathing was ragged, like she'd run a marathon.

Just a corner was visible, but a bright light came from the gap, causing her vision to explode to white. She felt like she was flying away, and heard the voice say something before it faded away: "Soon, daughter of Hades, soon we will meet."

Then her world became white.

For a second there was nothing, then she found herself on a beach, she glanced around, and found that she wasn't alone. There was a boy beside her, he had a mess of black hair and lightly bronzed skin, like he spent a lot of time at the beach. He was pretty muscular but built like a swimmer. He was sipping a can of coke, and he turned to look her in the eye mid sip. His eyes were black, like coal, and she couldn't help but be reminded of Nico.

He lowered the coke and gave her a crooked grin. 'Well, who's it going to be?' His grin widened, 'me?'

The world morphed, suddenly she was at the top of a hill, looking down on a valley, she could see a farmhouse and a few buildings dotted around bellow her. She couldn't see much but could make out the movement of people below her. She turned her back to the place and found another person beside her, she was dressed like a punk, with a 'death to barbie' T-shirt and black eyeliner. Her hair was short and messy, kind of like the other guy, she had the same black eyes as him too, she was staring at her, watching the valley. Though there was a strange dimness to her eyes though, like she was just awake or sleepwalking or something.

'You need to choose, so will it be me?' She said, a small grin on her face.

Suddenly, the other guy, the one from before was with them, 'c'mon choose.' He said.

"What's going on?" Bianca asked, confused and still shaken from the first dream.

'Fine, we'll wait a bit longer, but you'd better be ready.' The boy said.

'But you'd better make the right choice.' The girl said, 'don't leave it to Nico.'

"Nico? What do you?"

But they were gone, she was alone in the dark.

"Where am I?!" She yelled, but no one replied.

For a moment there was nothing, she just sat there, but then the world shifted again, and she found herself looking at a woman, a very familiar woman. She had the same skin tone as Nico and herself, but had lighter coloured eyes, she smiled at Bianca for a moment before speaking, 'it's time to wake up.'

The world began to fade to black.

"Wake up."

The woman's face was replaced with Nico's, he was upside down and staring down at her with a look of concern. A grin replaced his worry as she blinked the sleep away.

"Good, you're awake, I'm bored." He said, pouting slightly.

"What?" She blinked the last of her sleep away and stared at him. She sat up and rubbed her now stiff neck. She turned around to face her brother properly and immediately became annoyed, "Nico, where's your seatbelt?"

"Umm, I just…" He hopped back in his seat and buckled himself back in.

"Good, now why did you take it off?"

"You weren't waking up, and Mrs… whatever, wasn't being helpful." She turned and saw their driver didn't look any different to when she fell asleep, no, wait, her knuckles were noticeably white, and the wheel was creaking beneath her grip.

"Nico, don't bother the… woman." She hoped neither occupant noticed the pause.

"Well, you're awake now, wanna play?" He asked.

"Sure." She replied, anything to take her mind off the dream, she shivered as she took the cards off her little brother.

"Are you cold? Mrs driver, could you turn the heater on? Does this car have a heater?"

She smiled, her brother could always cheer her up, even if it was by annoying the dangerous monster who was driving them to their home.

A quick glance found that Volpe was still asleep, but Nico must have moved him to the middle seat. Nico kept on talking, she smiled a little wider, 'never change Nico.' She thought to herself as she played with him.

 **A/N: I know that this is a pretty short and, to be honest,** **disappointing chapter, but there isn't really much going on. Next chapter should be more interesting, I have plans for what will happen to Yagura on her trip to the Sea of Monsters, mwuhahaha *lighting** **strikes** **ominously** **in the background* so yeah, that will be fun.**

 **On another note, I had a stroke of** **inspiration** **the other day:**

 **I'm not sure if many of you have seen the show Lucifer, but it is a great show, it's lots of fun to watch and actually shows the devil in a favourable light, and Tom Elis is a great actor, and singer on occasion, so I would urge you to watch it some time.**

 **Also, I know Trials of Apollo hasn't been as well** **received** **as the** **original** **Percy Jackson books, or even the Heroes of Olympus, at least on the** **fan fiction** **side of things. Of course, I can't read every other Riordan fan's mind, but for me, they're pretty OK, and I'm a bit surprised that there isn't more fan fiction about it.**

 **Also the third book comes out soon, and I'm getting excited!**

 **Anyway, there must have been a point somewhere here. Right! Idea time:**

 **A Lucifer x Trials of Apollo story, where Apollo takes the place of our** **favourite** **devil.**

 **Read no further for mild spoilers on Lucifer.**

 **Basically, the** **premise** **somewhat follows the plot of the show, now, either Apollo was cast down recently i.e. trials of Apollo style, but he still retained some of his godly powers (something to do with his truth god powers, to do Lucifer's desire thing from the show, his musical talent(obviously) his strength(for the scenes where he goes all** **bad ass** **) and maybe something where he glows(?) to maybe do the thing where Lucifer's skin goes all red(?)) and just doesn't care about being a god again.**

 **Artemis comes down in the place of Amenadiel and tries to get him to come back, or maybe she's with him? I don't know, these are just concepts.**

 **OR:**

 **Apollo was cast down a while ago (like, a long while ago(no idea how to fill the gaping hole that will be the god of the suns presence in the series but go with it)) and he ended up in Tartarus. He ends up in charge, somehow, or he escapes after a long time.**

 **If he ends up in charge, he just gets sick of Tartarus like Lucifer in the series and it fits in better that he come back the way he does. Maybe Mazikeen can be Keli or someone else from the Underworld/Tartarus (hint, new additions to the underworld ) He stays in L.A. instead of going back to Olympus and when Zeus finds out he sends campers to find him, or Artemis, and he** **basically** **gives them all the biggest of middle fingers telling them he doesn't want to be a proper god again.**

 **If he ends up escaping after a long time, he just doesn't want anything to do with his family anymore and just stays in L.A. until some camper runs into him and finds out in his club. When Artemis/Zeus comes to get him he says no, they didn't help him, he doesn't want anything to do with them etc. He could have, escaped with someone(again hint, someone recently deceased) and so on.**

 **Decker could be played by Thalia, or maybe one of his daughters, I don't know, I'm just putting this out there.**

 **This could happen after the events of the books, taking place instead of trials of Apollo, or it could be an AU where the events don't happen and the characters are just sort of taking over the Lucifer cast, though I wouldn't** **recommend** **going this way, might just be a bit predictable, but up to you.**

 **In all honesty, I just want to see something like this done. I'd do it myself, but if I'm having trouble making updates for the single story I have, I don't want to make another one and end up having one of them be neglected, also, I haven't finished Lucifer yet (so much sadness(please no one be that guy ans spoil it in the comments or anything, because not only will you ruin it for me, but you'll ruin it for anyone else reading them(though I doubt it would be many) and spoiling the story for them) and that would just be no fun for anyone involved)**

 **So, please, if anyone wants to take this up, contact me. Not because I want to end up dictating anything to anyone about writing the story (but if you would like any constructive criticism or me to be a beta, I'd be up for that) but because I** **genuinely** **want this to be a thing and want to read it, hell, if more people try this I'd love to see the different directions the story could take, and different writers interpretations of it.**

 **Thank you for reading this, and I hope at least one of you takes this on.**

 **By the way, I'll be uploading a challenge for this, it will go into more detail, so if you want nothing to do with this then you probably won't want to read it, but if you are interested, please read it for some more details.**

 **Thank you for reading anyway, and I'll hopefully be back with another update some time next week.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I did it! I'm back! Just a heads up, I have no idea when my next update will be, so don't hold your breath. This is a big chapter, so be happy!**

Percy woke up from more nightmares of Grover, or rather his capture, the deadline had been set to seven days. Seven days to find Grover and save him from a short unhappy marriage with a very high chance of Mariticide when the reveal happened.

He sat up mindful of his rather furry hot water bottle, who whimpered as he moved. He smiled, that was an upside to the situation. The downside? Well, he had to find Grover, and the golden fleece in a week and then somehow make it back in time to save Thalia's tree. Also, Hermes had asked him to try and help Luke, who had tried to kill him several times last summer indirectly, and once _very_ directly.

At least the god had been nice enough to give them a few supplies before they embarked on the long and potentially life-threatening quest. They had bottled wind and a pack of vitamins, along with some bags containing the essentials, enough for the five of them to make it to the sea of monsters.

After Hermes left, Poseidon sent three Hippocampi to give them a lift to the cruise ship that Hermes pointed out. After sneaking aboard, they decided to call it a night and found a few free cabins, they agreed not to eat or drink anything from the boat, both foxes, even if Anchor didn't have a large vocabulary, and Tyson agreed that there was something off.

So, after a night dreaming about Kronos, Grover and Polyphemus, here they were.

As he finished thinking over how he got in this new bed, a ships whistle sounded, and an Aussie's voice came in over the intercom, cheerily making an announcement. "Good morning, passengers! We'll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don't forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o'clock, and for our special guests, disembowelling practice on the Promenade!"

Well, that was a big load of nope. "What did he say?" He asked, just to be sure, the fox lying on his stomach gave him a look like 'you know what he said, now let's get the hell out of this crazy place!'

Tyson moaned and rolled over still very much half asleep. He was lying face down on the couch, his feet so far over the edge they were in the bathroom. "The happy man said ... bowling practice?" He asked with slight excitement tinging his voice.

Anchor barked weakly, and hopped over to Tyson, nudging him with his tail in an effort to get him up. Percy smiled, but noticed something odd, the fox was wincing, barely noticeably every time he moved, as he was about to ask, Annabeth, Whiskers in tow, stuck her head in the doorway. "Disembowelling practice?"

After they got changed, they left their cabins and decided to take a tour of the ship, but were surprised when instead of a ghost crew, there were normal looking tourists. An army of senior citizens marched to breakfast, a dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers.

Everything looked nice and happy, too happy.

It was hard to tell what exactly, until a small family of swimmers passed, looking dazed. The dad told his kids: "We are on a cruise. We are having fun." "Yes," his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. "We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool." They wandered off.

"Good morning," a crew member told us, his eyes glistening. "We are all enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day." He drifted away.

"Percy, this is weird," Annabeth whispered. "They're all in some kind of trance."

They walked in an uneasy silence until they came to the cafeteria and saw a monster. A hellhound, with its front paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. It must've been young, because it was small compared to most, no bigger than a grizzly bear.

As if this wasn't weird enough, there was a middle-aged couple standing in the buffet line right behind the devil dog, patiently waiting their turn for the eggs. They didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.

"Not hungry anymore," Tyson murmured. Anchor barked quietly in solidarity.

Then, a reptilian voice came from down the corridor, "Ssssix more joined yesssterday." Annabeth gestured frantically toward the nearest hiding place, the women's room, and they all ducked inside. Two very large things slithered past the bathroom door, making sounds like sandpaper against the carpet.

"Yesss," a second reptilian voice said. "He drawssss them. Ssssoon we will be sssstrong." The things slithered into the cafeteria with a cold hissing that might have been snake laughter. Annabeth looked at Percy. "We have to get out of here."

"You think I want to be in the girls' restroom?"

"I mean the ship, Percy! We have to get off the ship."

"Smells bad," Tyson agreed. "And dogs eat all the eggs. Annabeth is right. We must leave the restroom and ship." Whiskers and Anchor nodded in agreement, as he looked at them, he noticed they weren't looking too good, they both winced every time they were moved, and any movement that was their own was sluggish, he put it out of mind when he considered the situation.

As they went to leave, another voice was overheard, a very familiar one that was worse than any monster's. "-only a matter of time. Don't push me, Agrius!" Luke.

"I'm not pushing you!" another guy growled. His voice was deeper and even angrier than Luke's. "I'm just saying, if this gamble doesn't pay off-"

"It'll pay off," Luke snapped. "They'll take the bait. Now, come, we've got to get to the admiralty suite and check on the casket." Their voices receded down the corridor.

Tyson whimpered. "Leave now?"

The two demi-gods exchanged looks and came to a silent agreement.

"We can't," Percy told Tyson.

"We have to find out what Luke is up to," Annabeth agreed. "And if possible, we're going to beat him up, bind him in chains, and drag him to Mount Olympus."

"This feels like a bad idea." Whiskers said, the fox winced again after speaking, like he was in pain.

"Are you all right?" Annabeth asked, picking up on his pain.

"Fine, just some sea sickness I think." He replied, "but I seriously think we should get out of here, it's bad enough with the hellhounds, but Luke… This is his home turf, his ship."

Percy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he remembered Yagura, her ship, how at home he felt there. That feeling was here as well, weaker, but there, this was a ship, on the ocean, "no." He said, opening his eyes, "this is my home turf."

Whiskers sighed before looking away, "worth a try."

Anchor barked apologetically, he still hadn't learned enough English to converse with anyone, but Whiskers assured them he was progressing.

"I'll go ahead, they won't see me with my cap on." Annabeth said, but both Whiskers and Percy denied her.

"It's too dangerous." They said in unison, then shared a look at the speaking in unison thing.

"Either we all go, or nobody does." Percy said, decidedly.

"Nobody!" Tyson voted. "Please?"

But, he came along, nervously chewing on his huge fingernails.

They went back to their cabin to gather their stuff, memories of having nothing last year had made them want to keep a hold of whatever they could.

Tyson insisted on carrying everything, no matter how much Percy disagreed, Annabeth told him not to worry about it, since the big guy could carry all three full duffel bags over his shoulder as easily as either Percy or Annabeth could carry one.

They snuck through the corridors, following the ship's YOU ARE HERE signs toward the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead invisibly, and they hid whenever someone passed by, even if most of the people were just glassy-eyed zombie passengers.

As they made it to the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "Hide!" and shoved all of them into a supply closet. A couple of guys were coming down the hall.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" one of them said.

The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome." Annabeth was still invisible, but she squeezed Percy's arm hard. The second guy sounded familiar. "I hear they got two more coming."

"They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man, no contest!" The voices faded down the corridor.

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took off her cap and turned visible. "You remember? From Cabin Eleven."

"What's another half-blood doing here?" Percy asked, but Annabeth only shook her head, clearly troubled.

They kept going down the corridor. At this point, they didn't need maps anymore to know where Luke was. There was just a sense of something, something cold and unpleasant. The presence of evil.

"Percy." Annabeth stopped suddenly. "Look."

She stood in front of a glass wall looking down into the multi-storey canyon that ran through the middle of the ship. At the bottom was the Promenade, a mall full of shops, but that's not what had caught Annabeth's attention.

A group of monsters had assembled in front of the candy store: a dozen Laistrygonian giants like the ones who'd attacked him and Tyson with dodge balls, two hellhounds, and a few even stranger creatures: humanoid females with twin serpent tails instead of legs.

"Scythian Dracaenae," Annabeth whispered. "Dragon women."

The monsters made a semicircle around a young guy in Greek armour who was hacking on a straw dummy. A dummy wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt.

The guy in armour stabbed the dummy through its belly and ripped upward. Straw flew everywhere. The monsters cheered and howled. Annabeth stepped away from the window. Her face was ashen.

"Come on," Percy told her, trying to sound brave. "The sooner we find Luke the better."

At the end of the hallway were double oak doors that looked like they must lead somewhere important.

When they were thirty feet away, Tyson stopped. "Voices inside."

"You can hear that far?" I asked.

"Yeah, we can hear them too." Whiskers said.

"What are they saying."

"Something about a prophecy-" Whiskers began, but Tyson cut him off, in Luke's voice.

"—the prophecy ourselves. The fools won't know which way to turn."

Then, Tyson's voice changed again, becoming deeper and gruffer, like the other guy talking to Luke outside the cafeteria. "You really think the old horseman is gone for good?"

Tyson laughed Luke's laugh. "They can't trust him. Not with the skeletons in his closet. The poisoning of the tree was the final straw."

Annabeth shivered. "Stop that, Tyson! How do you do that? It's creepy." Whiskers shushed her.

Tyson opened his eye and looked puzzled. "Just listening."

"Keep going," Percy said. "What else are they saying?"

Tyson closed his eye again. He hissed in the gruff man's voice: "Quiet!"

Whiskers and Anchor's eyes widened, and they leaped up, but lurched in pain, both wincing in sync, finally, "we've been found out." Whiskers gasped out.

Percy and Annabeth didn't react quick enough, giving Tyson time to speak again, whispering: "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Tyson said in the gruff voice. "Right outside."

They turned to run, when the doors of the stateroom burst open and there was Luke, flanked by two hairy giants armed with javelins, their bronze tips aimed right at Percy and Annabeth.

"Well," Luke said with a crooked smile. "If it isn't my two favourite cousins. Come right in."

With the door open, they got a chance to scan the room, it was beautiful, and it was horrible.

The beautiful part: Huge windows curved along the back wall, looking out over the stern of the ship. Green sea and blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon. A Persian rug covered the floor. Two plush sofas occupied the middle of the room, with a canopied bed in one corner and a mahogany dining table in the other. The table was loaded with food—pizza boxes, bottles of soda, and a stack of roast beef sandwiches on a silver platter.

The horrible part: On a velvet dais at the back of the room lay a ten-foot-long golden casket. A sarcophagus, engraved with Ancient Greek scenes of cities in flames and heroes dying grisly deaths. Despite the sunlight streaming through the windows, the casket made the whole room feel cold, and glowed with an unholy light.

"Well," Luke said, spreading his arms proudly. "A little nicer than Cabin Eleven, huh?" He'd changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He looked like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year. He still had the scar under his eye—a jagged white line from his battle with a dragon. And propped against the sofa was his magical sword, Backbiter, glinting strangely with its half steel, half-Celestial bronze blade that could kill both mortals and monsters.

He glanced at them, his eyes stalling slightly on Annabeth, before he spotted Anchor, he mouthed something but shook his head.

"Sit," he said and waved his hand and three dining chairs scooted themselves into the centre of the room, as well as two small cushions. None of them took him up on his offer. Luke's large friends were still pointing their javelins at them, but they were moving between targets, unable to choose who to attack first.

They looked like twins, but they weren't human. They stood about eight feet tall, for one thing, and wore only blue jeans, probably because their enormous chests were already shag-carpeted with thick brown fur. They had claws for fingernails, feet like paws. Their noses were snout-like, and their teeth were all pointed canines.

"Where are my manners?" Luke said smoothly. "These are my assistants, Agrius and Oreius. Perhaps you've heard of them."

None of them spoke.

"You don't know Agrius and Oreius's story?" Luke asked. "Their mother... well, it's sad, really. Aphrodite ordered the young woman to fall in love. She refused and ran to Artemis for help. Artemis let her become one of her maiden huntresses, but Aphrodite got her revenge. She bewitched the young woman into falling in love with a bear. When Artemis found out, she abandoned the girl in disgust."

"That's not true." Whiskers said with a grunt. Immediately both javelins were pointed his way, even with whatever sea sickness he had, he still managed to growl menacingly enough to cause the two of them to back off slightly, fear in their eyes. It would have been comical, two eight-foot bear men terrified of a small, sick fox. "She didn't abandon her in disgust, she broke her vow, curse or not, she was no longer a maiden, and couldn't be a hunter." The bear men growled but Whiskers stared each of them in the eyes, and they backed off.

"Well you've changed." Luke said, his eyes turned to slits, "I figured you would be against the hunters, given your past misgivings with them. Last time they appeared, you ran, if I recall correctly."

"And you clearly don't know all the facts." Whiskers said back, his voice a snarl.

"Well, I suppose that's true," his eyes turned to Anchor, "so who's this, another parody?" He sneered.

"I am Anchor." Anchor growled and wobbled uncertainly as he moved forward, Percy's eyes widened, that had been the first time the fox had made a proper sentence in front of him, and the similarities between him and Whiskers just kept growing with that voice. They were identical.

"Well, you mightn't be the brightest, or the strongest, but I suppose, given the company…" Luke smiled as he made himself comfortable on the sofa and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Well, Percy, we let you survive another year. I hope you appreciated it. How's your mom? How's school?"

"You poisoned Thalia's tree."

Luke sighed. "Right to the point, eh? Okay, sure I poisoned the tree. So what?"

"How could you?" Annabeth sounded like she'd explode. "Thalia and Parrot saved your life! Our lives! How could you dishonour her-"

"I didn't dishonour her!" Luke snapped. "The gods dishonoured her, Annabeth! If they were alive, they'd be on my side."

"Liar!" Annabeth said at the exact same time as Whiskers said:

"I know for a fact you are wrong." He growled, stepping forward, "we are identical in everything, including how we think, if I won't join, what makes you think he ever would." The fox wobbled on his feet, the seasickness must be getting to him badly, Percy absent-mindedly wondered why he hadn't been like this last year.

"You may look like him," Luke said, standing up and glaring at the fox, "and sound like him," he moved forward to stare down at the fox, who to his credit didn't back down, "and maybe even act like him," the son of Hermes bent down to face the fox, the light of the room shadowed some of his face, the scar being highlighted, "but you are not Parrot."

Whiskers barked out a laugh sounding completely alien in this room. Luke's face contorted in anger, but the fox didn't stop, until the laugh turned into cough, he brought his tail around to cover his mouth. When he brought it back, Luke's eyes widened marginally at something hidden from the demi-gods by his larger form covering the smaller fox.

"You truly know nothing about us." The fox growled out.

Percy thought he saw something green on the fox's tail as it swished back, but he couldn't make anything out on a second glance. Did Luke do something to Whiskers?

"But I think you're starting to understand." The fox whispered out barely audibly.

"Be that as it may, Thalia would join me, and you can't be sure about everything little fox."

"No, but I'm pretty sure about this." The fox said, Luke was ready to say something else but Annabeth interrupted.

"Thalia would never join you, she-" Annabeth began but Luke turned on her, his eyes blazing with rage, completely different to how he was before.

"If you knew what was coming!" He yelled, before he seemed to catch himself, his voice moving back to his normal calm tone, "you'd understand-"

"I understand you want to destroy the camp!" she yelled. "You're a monster!"

Luke shook his head, now looking almost… mournful? "The gods have blinded you. Can't you imagine a world without them, Annabeth? What good is that ancient history you study? Three thousand years of baggage! The West is rotten to the core. It has to be destroyed. Join me! We can start the world anew. We could use your intelligence, Annabeth."

"Annie has too much sense to join you." Whiskers snarled.

Luke's eyes narrowed, but he didn't acknowledge the fox, only looking at Annabeth. "I know you, Annabeth. You deserve better than tagging along on some hopeless quest to save the camp. Half-Blood Hill will be overrun by monsters within the month. The heroes who survive will have no choice but to join us or be hunted to extinction. You really want to be on a losing team... with company like this?" Luke pointed at Tyson and looked disgusted.

"Hey!" Percy said, affronted.

"Traveling with a Cyclops," Luke chided. "Talk about dishonouring Thalia's memory! I'm surprised at you, Annabeth. You of all people-"

"Shut up Luke." Whiskers warned, but fell into another coughing fit, which went unnoticed to the others, who were too deep in their argument. Percy, however, noticed that something was wrong with the fox and narrowed his eyes in confusion, he looked to Anchor, who wasn't looking any better.

"Stop it!" Annabeth shouted, breaking Percy from his analysis of the fox. Annabeth had now buried her head in her hands like she was about to cry.

"Leave her alone," Percy said. "And leave Tyson out this."

Luke laughed. "Oh, yeah, I heard. Your father claimed him."

Surprise was evident on Percy's face, and Luke smiled. "Yes, Percy, I know all about that. And about your plan to find the Fleece. What were those coordinates, again... 30, 31, 75, 12? You see, I still have friends at camp who keep me posted."

"Spies, you mean."

He shrugged. "How many insults from your father can you stand, Percy? You think he's grateful to you? You think Poseidon cares for you any more than he cares for this monster?" Tyson clenched his fists and made a rumbling sound down in his throat. Luke just chuckled. "The gods are so using you, Percy. Do you have any idea what's in store for you if you reach your sixteenth birthday? Has Chiron even told you the prophecy?"

Percy tried to hide it, but he was reeling on the inside, what was he talking about? "I know what I need to know," he managed, and then to seal the deal: "Like, who my enemies are."

"Then you're a fool."

Tyson smashed the nearest dining chair to splinters. "Percy is not a fool!"

Before anyone could intercede, he charged Luke. His fists came down toward Luke's head in a double overhead blow that would've knocked a hole in titanium, but the bear twins intercepted. They each caught one of Tyson's arms and stopped him cold. They pushed him back and Tyson stumbled. He fell to the carpet so hard the deck shook.

"Too bad, Cyclops," Luke said. "Looks like my grizzly friends together are more than a match for your strength. Maybe I should let them-"

"Luke," Percy cut in, hopefully stopping him from punishing Tyson. "Listen to me. Your father sent us."

Rage was visible on Luke's face, you know the phrase 'seeing red'? Well Luke had more than enough red to spare, enough for his face to visualise that as a helpful hint to how he felt. "Don't. Even. Mention him."

"He told us to take this boat. I thought it was just for a ride, but he sent us here to find you. He told me he won't give up on you, no matter how angry you are."

"Angry?" Luke roared. "Give up on me? He abandoned me, Percy! I want Olympus destroyed! Every throne crushed to rubble! You tell Hermes it's going to happen, too. Each time a half-blood joins us, the Olympians grow weaker and we grow stronger. He grows stronger." Luke pointed to the gold sarcophagus.

"So?" I demanded. "What's so special..." It hit him, what might be inside the sarcophagus. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. "Whoa, you don't mean-"

"He is re-forming," Luke said. "Little by little, we're calling his life force out of the pit. With every recruit who pledges our cause, another small piece appears-"

"That's disgusting!" Annabeth said. Luke sneered at her.

"Your mother was born from Zeus's split skull, Annabeth. I wouldn't talk. Soon there will be enough of the titan lord so that we can make him whole again. We will piece together a new body for him, a work worthy of the forges of Hephaestus."

"You're insane," Annabeth said.

"Join us and you'll be rewarded. We have powerful friends, sponsors rich enough to buy this cruise ship and much more. Percy, your mother will never have to work again. You can buy her a mansion. You can have power, fame, whatever you want. Annabeth, you can realize your dream of being an architect. You can build a monument to last a thousand years. A temple to the lords of the next age! Whiskers… you can have whatever you want! Revenge against the hunters, the chance to hunt them! Just join us."

"You know nothing about me." Whiskers said, but his voice was weak, that drew Annabeth's attention. He was defiantly not looking his best, he was wobbling slightly as he stood up to Luke and his eyes were half closed, he looked dead on his feet.

Luke cringed at the sight, "Whiskers, we can-"

"Go to Tartarus," Annabeth yelled as she moved closer to Whiskers and picked him up.

Luke sighed. "A shame." He picked up something that looked like a TV remote and pressed a red button. Within seconds the door of the stateroom opened, and two uniformed crew members came in, armed with nightsticks. They had the same glassy-eyed look as the other mortals, but this probably wouldn't make them any less dangerous in a fight. "Ah, good, security," Luke said, "I'm afraid we have some stowaways."

"Yes, sir," they said dreamily. Luke turned to Oreius. "It's time to feed the Aethiopian drakon. Take these fools below and show them how it's done."

Oreius grinned stupidly. "Hehe! Hehe!"

"Let me go, too," Agrius grumbled. "My brother is worthless. That Cyclops-"

"Is no threat," Luke said. He glanced back at the golden casket, as if something were troubling him. "Agrius, stay here. We have important matters to discuss."

"But-"

"Oreius, don't fail me. Stay in the hold to make sure the drakon is properly fed."

Percy lifted Anchor who wasn't looking any better than Whiskers before Oreius prodded him with his javelin and herded the lot of them out of the stateroom, followed by the two human security guards. As they walked down the corridor with Oreius's javelin poking him in the back, he thought about what Luke had said, that the bear twins together were a match for Tyson's strength.

Percy looked at Tyson, put Anchor down and said, "Now." He understood and turned and smacked Oreius thirty feet backward into the swimming pool, right into the middle of the zombie tourist family.

"Ah!" the kids yelled in monotone unison. "We are not having a blast in the pool!"

One of the security guards drew his nightstick, but Annabeth knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed kick, she held Whiskers close to her chest, and kept him out of the fight. The other guard ran for the nearest alarm box.

"Stop him!" Annabeth yelled, but it was too late. Just as Percy banged him on head with a deck chair, he hit the alarm. Red lights flashed. Sirens wailed.

"Lifeboat!" Percy yelled, and they ran for the nearest one.

By the time they got the cover off, monsters and more security men were swarming the deck, pushing aside tourists and waiters with trays of tropical drinks. A guy in Greek armour drew his sword and charged but slipped in a puddle of piña colada. Laistrygonian archers assembled on the deck above, notching arrows in their enormous bows.

"How do you launch this thing?" screamed Annabeth. A hellhound leaped at Percy, but Tyson slammed it aside with a fire extinguisher.

"Get in!" He yelled as he uncapped Riptide and slashed the first volley of arrows out of the air. Any second we would be overwhelmed. The lifeboat was hanging over the side of the ship, high above the water. Annabeth and Tyson were having no luck with the release pulley, while Whiskers and Anchor were both moaning in the bottom of the boat.

Percy jumped in beside them, mindful of the foxes. "Hold on!" He yelled and cut the ropes. A shower of arrows whistled over their heads as they free-fell toward the ocean.

"Thermos!" Percy screamed as they hurtled toward the water. "What?" Annabeth must've thought he'd lost his mind, to be honest, he was looking pretty mad. She was holding on to the boat straps with one arm and holding Whiskers with the other. Her hair flying straight up like a torch.

Tyson understood and managed to open one of the duffel bags to take out Hermes's magical thermos without losing his grip on it or the boat, he did sort of forget about the fox he was holding onto, and Anchor started to learn to fly.

Arrows and javelins whistled past as Percy grabbed the thermos and hoped he knew what he was doing. "Hang on!"

"I am hanging on!" Annabeth yelled.

"Not!" Anchor yelled as he hovered a foot above the boat, Percy grabbed him and held him close.

"I got you." Percy said as he hooked his feet under the boat's inflatable bench, Tyson grabbed Annabeth and Percy by the backs of their shirts. With a quarter turn of the cap, a white sheet of wind jetted out of the thermos and propelled the boat sideways, making a perfect hypotenuse.

The wind seemed to laugh as it shot from the thermos, like it was glad to be free. As they hit the ocean, they bumped once, twice, skipping like a stone, then they were whizzing along like a speed boat, salt spraying everywhere and nothing but sea ahead.

There was a wail of outrage from the ship, but they were already out of weapon range. The Princess Andromeda faded to the size of a white toy boat in the distance, and then it was gone. As they raced over the sea, the demi-gods tried to send an Iris-message to Chiron.

The wind from the thermos stirred up a nice sea spray that made a rainbow in the sunlight, perfect for an Iris-message, but the connection was still poor. When Annabeth threw a gold drachma into the mist and prayed for the rainbow goddess to show Chiron, his face appeared all right, but there was some kind of weird strobe light flashing in the background and rock music blaring, like he was at a dance club.

They told him everything, about sneaking away from camp, and Luke and the Princess Andromeda and the golden box for Kronos's remains, but between the noise on his end and the rushing wind and water on their end, it was difficult to be sure how much he heard.

"Percy," Chiron yelled, "you have to watch out for-" His voice was drowned out by loud shouting behind him, a bunch of voices whooping it up like Comanche warriors.

"What?" Percy yelled.

"Curse my relatives!" Chiron ducked as a plate flew over his head and shattered somewhere out of sight. "Annabeth, you shouldn't have let Percy leave camp! But if you do get the Fleece-"

"Yeah, baby!" somebody behind Chiron yelled.

"Woo-hoooooo!"

The music got cranked up, subwoofers so loud it made the boat vibrate.

"-Miami," Chiron was yelling. "I'll try to keep watch-"

The misty screen smashed apart like someone on the other side had thrown a bottle at it, and Chiron was gone. An hour later they spotted land, a long stretch of beach lined with high-rise hotels. The water became crowded with fishing boats and tankers. A coast guard cruiser passed on the starboard side, then turned like it wanted a second look. An apt response.

"That's Virginia Beach!" Annabeth said as they made it to the shoreline. "Oh my gods, how did the Princess Andromeda travel so far overnight? That's like-"

"Five hundred and thirty nautical miles," Percy guessed.

She stared. "How did you know that?"

"I—I'm not sure." Annabeth thought for a moment.

"Percy, what's our position?"

"36 degrees, 44 minutes north, 76 degrees, 2 minutes west," he said immediately. Then shook his head. "Whoa. How did I know that?"

"Because of your dad," Annabeth guessed. "When you're at sea, you have perfect bearings. That is so cool."

Tyson tapped him on the shoulder. "Other boat is coming." Looking back, the coast guard vessel was definitely on their tail now. Its lights flashing as it gained speed.

"We can't let them catch us," Percy said. "They'll ask too many questions."

"Keep going into Chesapeake Bay," Annabeth said. "I know a place we can hide."

Percy loosened the thermos cap a little more, and a fresh burst of wind sent them rocketing around the northern tip of Virginia Beach into Chesapeake Bay. The coast guard boat fell farther and farther behind. They didn't slow down until the shores of the bay narrowed on either side, they'd entered the mouth of a river.

Percy felt the change from salt water to fresh water. He was suddenly very tired and frazzled, like coming down off a sugar high. He now didn't know where they were, or where to steer to.

"There," Annabeth said. "Past that sandbar." They veered into a swampy area choked with marsh grass and Percy beached the lifeboat at the foot of a giant cypress. Vine-covered trees loomed above, and insects chirred in the woods. The air was muggy and hot, and steam curled off the river.

"Come on," Annabeth said. "It's just down the bank."

"What is?" Percy asked.

"Just follow." She said, grabbing a duffel bag and Whiskers, who still wasn't looking too good. "And we'd better cover the boat. We don't want to draw attention."

After burying the lifeboat with branches, Tyson and Percy followed Annabeth along the shore, Anchor in Percy's arms, their feet sank in the red mud. A snake slithered past them shoe and disappeared into the grass.

"Not a good place," Tyson said as he swatted the mosquitoes that were forming a buffet line on his arm.

After another few minutes, Annabeth said, "Here." It was a patch of brambles.

Annabeth moved aside a woven circle of branches, like a door, and they were looking into a camouflaged shelter. The inside was big enough for the five of them, even with Tyson being the fifth.

The walls were woven from plant material, like a Native American hut, but they looked pretty water-proof. Stacked in the corner was everything you could want for a campout: sleeping bags, blankets, an ice chest, and a kerosene lamp.

There were demigod provisions, too: bronze javelin tips, a quiver full of arrows, an extra sword, and a box of ambrosia. The place smelled musty, like it had been vacant for a long time. "A half-blood hideout." Percy looked at Annabeth in awe. "You made this place?"

"Thalia, Parrot, Whiskers and I," she said quietly. "And Luke."

"So…" Percy said carefully. "You don't think Luke will look for us here?" She shook her head.

"We made a dozen safe houses like this. I doubt Luke even remembers where they are. Or cares." She threw herself down on the blankets and started going through her duffel bag. Her body language made it pretty clear she didn't want to talk.

"Um, Tyson?" Percy said. "Would you mind scouting around outside? Like, look for a wilderness convenience store or something?"

"Convenience store?"

"Yeah, for snacks. Powdered donuts or something. Just don't go too far."

"Powdered donuts," Tyson said earnestly. "I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness." He headed outside and started calling, "Here, donuts!"

Once he was gone, Percy sat down across from Annabeth. "Hey, I'm sorry about, you know, seeing Luke."

"It's not your fault." She unsheathed her knife and started cleaning the blade with a rag.

"He let us go too easily," Percy said.

Annabeth nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. What we overheard him say about a gamble, and 'they'll take the bait'... I think he was talking about us."

"The Fleece is the bait? Or Grover?" She studied the edge of her knife.

"I don't know, Percy. Maybe he wants the Fleece for himself. Maybe he's hoping we'll do the hard work and then he can steal it from us. I just can't believe he would poison the tree."

"What did he mean," Percy asked, "that Thalia would've been on his side?"

"He's wrong."

"You don't sound sure." Annabeth glared.

"Percy, you know who you remind me of most? Thalia. You guys are so much alike it's scary. I mean, either you would've been best friends, or you would've strangled each other."

"Let's go with 'best friends.'"

"Thalia got angry with her dad sometimes. So do you. Would you turn against Olympus because of that?"

"No."

"Okay, then. Neither would she. Luke's wrong." Annabeth stuck her knife blade into the dirt.

"So what did Luke mean about Cyclopes?" Percy asked after a short pause. "He said you of all people-"

"I know what he said. He... he was talking about the real reason Thalia died." Annabeth drew a shaky breath. "You can never trust a Cyclops, Percy. Six years ago, on the night Grover was leading us to Half-Blood Hill-" She was interrupted when the door of the hut creaked open. Tyson crawled in.

He started to say something, but Anchor wobbled over to him, and he immediately picked up the fox and started to pet him, offering him something to eat, the fox dug in greedily. Percy gave Annabeth a look like 'how could you not like him?' But she just scowled. She moved to the other side of the hut and grabbed something, before turning around and frowning at Whiskers, who wasn't looking any better than he was earlier.

She held out some ambrosia out to him, and he nibbled at it from her hand, "what is wrong with you?" Her voice sounded enforcing, like she was interrogating him, but her eyes gave the act away, she was scared.

"Nothing." Whiskers muttered but went into a coughing fit.

"You've been sick all day, and most of the night, your coughing and whimpering woke me up a few times last night." She said, "I thought it was just sea sickness, but whatever is happening is most definitely not sea sickness. You aren't even in the water anymore."

"I'm fine." Whiskers said.

Annabeth glared at him and, for a minute, there was a battle of wills, Annabeth versus Whiskers. Nether was giving the other any ground, it would have gone on for longer, but Whiskers erupted into another coughing fit, bringing his tail around to cover his mouth again.

Annabeth was like lightning, moving over and grabbing Whiskers tail before he could swish it around behind him, he whimpered, but she had a firm grip. She gently, but firmly turned him around to see something hidden from Percy and jumped back as if she had been shot.

Whiskers looked at her guiltily, "I'm sorry, we didn't know," he gestured to Anchor, who coughed slightly from Tyson's shoulder, the big guy 'gently' pat his back, "it's slow, but when we got to camp… we're starting to feel the effects."

"What's going on?" Percy asked, but was ignored.

"But… it'll get better. We're far enough away that-"

"No Annie, it's not even slowed down."

Annabeth just stared at him, she looked like she had on the ship, when Luke mentioned Tyson, like she was about to cry, but she just took a deep breath and schooled her features.

"How long?"

"A week? Maybe more, but we-"

"What is going on?" Percy asked, bringing their attention to him.

Whiskers sighed and stood up, shakily, Annabeth moved to grab him and he thanked her when he brought her closer to Percy. He showed Percy his tail, and it didn't take him long to see what was wrong, right on the side of his tail, there was a huge blob of green contrasting to the pure silver, a familiar shade of green.

"That's…"

"The same poison as the tree's." Annabeth said, mournfully, "they're feeling the effects of the poison."

"But…"

"When we were near the tree, at camp, it was like a virus. We caught it. I'm not sure if it's the fact that it's a tree, or the fact that Parrot is only feeling part of the damage, but we're starting to feel what he feels."

"You… you're dying?" Percy asked, a lump appeared in his throat, "but… you're away from the tree-"

"We've already caught it, it's slow, and being away from the tree is helping, but it can't be stopped."

They were silent, no one willing to speak, the only sound coming from Anchor and Tyson, who were eating… donuts?

Looking for any distraction from the grim reality, Percy decided to speak up, "Tyson, buddy, what are you eating?"

"Powdered donuts!" he said proudly, holding up a pastry box.

Annabeth it seemed, was also looking for a distraction. "Where did you get that? We're in the middle of the wilderness. There's nothing around for—"

"Fifty feet," Tyson said. "Monster Donut shop—just over the hill!"

Annabeth and Whiskers eyes widened. "This is bad," Annabeth muttered.

They soon found themselves crouching behind a tree, staring at the donut shop in the middle of the woods. It looked brand new, with brightly lit windows, a parking area, and a little road leading off into the forest, but there was nothing else around, and no cars parked in the lot. We could see one employee reading a magazine behind the cash register. That was it. On the store's marquis, in huge black letters it said: MONSTER DONUT A cartoon ogre was taking a bite out of the O in MONSTER.

The place smelled good, like fresh-baked chocolate donuts. "This shouldn't be here," Annabeth whispered. "It's wrong."

"What?" Percy asked. "It's a donut shop."

"Shhh!"

"Why are we whispering? Tyson went in and bought a dozen. Nothing happened to him."

"He's a monster."

"Aw, c'mon, Annabeth. Monster Donut doesn't mean monsters! It's a chain. We've got them in New York."

"A chain," she agreed. "And don't you think it's strange that one appeared immediately after you told Tyson to get donuts? Right here in the middle of the woods?"

"It could be a nest," Annabeth explained. Tyson whimpered.

"A nest for what?" Percy asked, wearily.

"Haven't you ever wondered how franchise stores pop up so fast?" she asked. "One day there's nothing and then the next day, boom, there's a new burger place or a coffee shop or whatever? First a single store, then two, then four, exact replicas spreading across the country?"

"Um, no. Never thought about it."

"Percy, some of the chains multiply so fast because all their locations are magically linked to the life force of a monster. Some children of Hermes figured out how to do it back in the 1950s. They breed-" She froze. Anchor whimpered from Tyson's arms.

"What?" Percy demanded. "They breed what?"

"No. Sudden. Moves," Annabeth said, like her life depended on it. "Very slowly, turn around."

There was a scraping noise, like something large dragging its belly through the leaves. Turning brought to attention a rhino-size thing moving through the shadows of the trees. It was hissing, its front half writhing in all different directions. The thing had multiple necks, at least seven, each topped with a hissing reptilian head. Its skin was leathery, and under each neck it wore a plastic bib that read: I'm A MONSTER DONUT KID!

He took out his ballpoint pen, but Annabeth locked eyes with him, a silent warning.

Not yet.

Many monsters have terrible eyesight. It was possible the Hydra might pass by. But if he uncapped his sword now, the bronze glow would certainly get its attention.

They waited.

The Hydra was only a few feet away. It seemed to be sniffing the ground and the trees like it was hunting for something. Two of the heads were ripping apart a piece of yellow canvas, one of the duffel bags.

The thing had already been to the campsite, and it was following their scent. Now, they had a bit of a better of view, it wasn't a nice sight.

Each head was diamond-shaped, like a rattlesnake's, but the mouths were lined with jagged rows of shark like teeth.

Tyson trembled. He stepped back and accidentally snapped a twig.

Immediately, all seven heads turned to them and hissed.

"Scatter!" Annabeth yelled.

She dove to the right. Percy rolled to the left.

One of the Hydra heads spat an arc of green liquid that shot past them and splashed against an elm. The trunk smoked and began to disintegrate. The whole tree toppled straight toward Tyson, who still hadn't moved, petrified by the monster that was now right in front of him.

"Tyson!" Percy tackled him with all his might, knocking him aside just as the Hydra lunged and the tree crashed on top of two of its heads. The Hydra stumbled backward, yanking its heads free then wailing in outrage at the fallen tree. All seven heads shot acid, and the elm melted into a steaming pool of muck. "Move!" Percy told Tyson as he ran to one side and uncapped Riptide, drawing the monster's attention.

The Hydra whipped toward the sword with all its heads, hissing and baring its teeth. Tyson was momentarily out of danger, but now Percy was about to be melted into a puddle of goo. One of the heads snapped at him experimentally and without thinking, he swung his sword.

"No!" Annabeth yelled.

Too late.

The head came clean off and rolled away into the grass, leaving a flailing stump, which immediately stopped bleeding and began to swell like a balloon. In a matter of seconds, the wounded neck split into two necks, each of which grew a full-size head.

Now there was an eight-headed Hydra.

"Percy!" Annabeth scolded. "You just opened another Monster Donut shop somewhere!"

He dodged a spray of acid. "I'm about to die and you're worried about that? How do we kill it?"

"Fire!" Annabeth said. "We have to have fire!"

Percy backed up toward river.

The Hydra followed.

Annabeth moved in on his left and tried to distract one of the heads, parrying its teeth with her knife, but another head swung sideways like a club and knocked her into the muck.

"No hitting my friends!" Tyson charged in, putting himself between the Hydra and Annabeth. As Annabeth got to her feet, Tyson started smashing at the monster heads with his fists like a demonic game of whack-a-mole. But even Tyson couldn't fend off the Hydra forever.

They inched backward, dodging acid splashes and deflecting snapping heads without cutting them off, but they were only postponing their deaths. Eventually, they would make a mistake and the thing would kill them.

Then there were several strange sounds, a chug-chug-chug that was so powerful it made the riverbank shake, then there was another. This one was like listening to something splash in reverse.

"What's that noise?" Annabeth shouted, keeping her eyes on the Hydra.

"Steam engine," Tyson said.

"What?" Percy ducked as the Hydra spat acid over his head. Then from the river behind them, a familiar female voice shouted: "There! Prepare the thirty-two-pounder!" And an even more familiar voice yelled out: "I'm going to kill him!"

He didn't dare look away from the Hydra, but if it was who it sounded like behind them… he may as well just give up now, the hydra would probably be kinder. A gravelly male voice said, "They're too close, m'lady!"

"Damn the heroes!" the girl said. "Full steam ahead!"

"Aye, m'lady."

"Fire at will, Captain!"

Annabeth understood what was happening a split second before Percy. She yelled, "Hit the dirt!" and they dove for the ground as an earth-shattering BOOM echoed from the river. There was a flash of light, a column of smoke, and the Hydra exploded right in front of the group, showering them with nasty green slime that vaporized as soon as it hit, the way monster guts tend to do.

"Gross!" screamed Annabeth.

"Steamship!" yelled Tyson.

Percy stood, coughing from the cloud of gunpowder smoke that was rolling across the banks. Chugging toward the motley crew down the river was a strange ship. It rode low in the water like a submarine, its deck plated with iron. In the middle was a trapezoid-shaped casemate with slats on each side for cannons. A flag waved from the top, a wild boar and spear on a blood-red field. Lining the deck were zombies in grey uniforms, dead soldiers with shimmering faces that only partially covered their skulls, like the ghouls of the Underworld guarding Hades' palace.

The ship was an ironclad. A Civil War battle cruiser. The name was barely legible under a layer of moss: CSS Birmingham. And standing next to the smoking cannon that had almost killed them, wearing full Greek battle armour, was Clarisse.

"Losers," she sneered.

Now, things would have been fine with just that, but unfortunately, that wasn't the only ship bobbing along. Just behind the zombie ship, was a rather familiar vessel, with a very familiar scowling sister standing ominously at the prow. She didn't look much different from normal, other than what looked like chainmail across her chest, she had her staff at the ready, the sharp hook pointing towards them looked like it was hungry for Percy's blood.

"H-hey sis." He stuttered, sure, fighting a hydra, fine, drive a wind powered life boat, sure, face an angry Yagura… nope.

"You are in a lot of trouble mister." She said, her eyes turning to slits as she glared down at him, "now get onboard right this instant."

After Annabeth went back to grab Whiskers and Anchor, holding them far apart, she wasn't interested in creating the biggest lightshow this side of the Mississippi, they were on Clarisse's steamer. The foxes were kept in the arms of Percy and Annabeth respectively, when Clarisse saw them she stiffened and then glared between the two other demi-gods.

"What did you do?" She asked, her voice dripping venom.

"Bandit is affected too?" Annabeth asked.

"What the hell did you do to him?" Clarisse asked, her fingers inching towards her spear.

"Nothing, this is… the poison from the tree."

Yagura's face went white, "they… we're losing them?"

"Yes, if we don't get the fleece." Annabeth said, her voice not showing the inner fear she felt.

Clarisse's eyes burned with rage and her face went crimson, "how long do we have." Her voice was deadly calm.

"We're not sure if they're reacting as if they have the poison, or they're reacting to the tree's pain." Annabeth said, "if it's the former, maybe less than a week, judging by their symptoms. If it's the latter… until the tree f-falls." Her voice caught at the end, this must be made even worse for her, if the tree died, not only would she lose her last connection to Thalia and Parrot, but she'd lose Whiskers too.

Clarisse just stared at the wall, anger burned, but she didn't know who to blame. Eventually the fire burned out, and she just looked empty.

They were silent for a moment, until Clarisse spoke, "Tantalus expelled you for eternity." Normally she would say that smugly, but now her voice just sounded hollow. "Mr. D said he'll turn you into squirrels and run you over with his SUV." She let out an empty chuckle.

More silence.

"Did they give you this ship?" Percy asked.

"No. My father did."

"Ares?" Clarisse sneered, normally seeing this would be a bad sign, but at least it was better than seeing her look broken.

"You think your daddy is the only one with sea power? The spirits on the losing side of every war owe a tribute to Ares. That's their curse for being defeated. I prayed to my father for a naval transport and here it is. These guys will do anything I tell them."

"Clarisse," Annabeth said, "Luke might be after the Fleece, too. We saw him. He's got the coordinates and he's heading south. He has a cruise ship full of monsters-"

The fire was back and blazing stronger than before. "Good! I'll blow him out of the water. I'll send him and his army straight to Hades!"

"You don't understand-" Annabeth started.

"No! I'll destroy him, I'll tear him apart!"

"Clarisse." Yagura said, her voice firm, "now is not the time. Remember the prophecy."

"No!" Clarisse pounded the table. "This is my quest!"

"Clarisse-" Yagura tried again, but this time Percy cut her off.

"Where are your cabin mates?" He asked. "You were allowed to take two friends with you, weren't you?"

"They didn't... I let them stay behind. To protect the camp."

"You mean even the people in your own cabin wouldn't help you?"

"Shut up, Prissy! I don't need them! Or you!"

"Clarisse," Percy tried, "Tantalus is using you. He doesn't care about the camp. He'd love to see it destroyed. He's setting you up to fail."

"No! I don't care what the Oracle-" She stopped her-self.

"What did the Oracle tell you?"

"Nothing." Clarisse's ears turned pink. "All you need to know is that I'm finishing this quest and you're not helping. On the other hand, I can't let you go..."

"You could let them come over with us." Yagura suggested.

"Us?" Annabeth asked, "I thought you were going alone."

"I was, but there were…. Issues… with my ship." She sighed, "some idiot decided to mess about with some of the inner workings, nothing too bad, just the TV power, the life support, that sort of stuff." Percy wanted to interject and say that sounded important, but his sister just kept going. "So, in light of the fact it isn't technically in 'working order'," She actually put air quotes around working order, "I decided to bring Hana with me, to fix anything that is damaged."

"Right… we're fine with Clarisse, I think." Annabeth said nervously.

Clarisse made to mull it over, before finally saying, "fine." She propped her feet up on the white linen tablecloth and opened a Dr Pepper. "Captain, take them below. Assign them hammocks on the berth deck. If they don't mind their manners, show them how we deal with enemy spies."

(Road to Maine)

Bianca sighed with relief, they were only a few miles out from their stop. How they made it across the country in such a short period of time was a mystery, but Bianca guessed that their driver took a few 'shortcuts' of some sort. For all she knew it sprouted wings and took off.

Their surroundings melted from the highway, greenery appearing all around them, they soon found themselves on a country road for the final stretch of their journey. Finally, ahead of them, a castle loomed, looking like a stereotypical medieval castle, with black stone, slits for windows and spiralling towers. All that was missing was for lighting to strike in the background and it'd be the perfect location for Dracula's holiday home.

As they pulled up to the front door, Alecto turned to look at Bianca. "Your brother shouldn't be too long, but until he arrives stay together. There should be someone at the castle to sort out your accommodation over the summer."

"Wait, you're leaving us here?" Bianca asked, a twinge of fear in her voice.

"Yes." The Fury grumbled to herself, "I've wasted enough time babysitting the two of you."

"We aren't baby's." Nico said grumpily, but Bianca gave him a look.

"Thank you for the ride." Bianca said, stepping out of the car, "I know it probably wasn't very enjoyable, but thank you."

The Fury snorted and got out, she pulled their suitcases from the boot and drove off, maybe it was a trick of the light, but once the car reached the shadows the trees cast it just seemed to disappear. Bianca looked up to the castle and grimaced.

"Come on sis." Nico said, struggling slightly with his suitcase, "we'll see who's here to help with where we're staying."

Bianca sighed before grabbing her own case, and called out to Volpe, who had been chasing a squirrel at the edge of the forest. The fox hopped into her arms and the trio made their way up to their new home.

"What do you think it'll be like?" Nico asked, looking in awe at the large building.

"I don't know."

"Do you think there'll be a dungeon?"

"There might be."

"Do you think loads of people died there?"

"I don't know."

Bianca sighed as she tuned out her brother. At the moment there were a lot of things on her mind, Alecto said Utakata would be here soon, and she wasn't sure how them meeting up would go. She was still angry at him, very angry, and she needed to figure out how things would be now. She just couldn't forgive him, he'd lied to them from day one, and now she wasn't sure how much of what he said was true. Did he care for them in any way? Or were they just tools to get to Volpe?

She glanced at the fox, who looked back at her with his big blue eyes, a grin appeared on her face, and she couldn't help but mirror it.

She'd get the truth out of him when she saw him. Her face hardened, no matter how painful it was.

If he had been using them, then… she wasn't sure, she couldn't let him stay around Nico, it would only hurt him, her too. Already she felt the pain of him lying burn inside her. She blinked tears from her eyes as she thought back to all the times her bro-Utakata had been there, did he actually care?

Fears of the worst-case scenario flowed through her head, memories became dark, all the good times were just lies, he didn't care. A small voice in the back of her head told her not to make that decision without knowing the facts, but it was drowned out by the anger and pain.

Another look to Nico, who was smiling happily, blissfully unaware of the impending argument his siblings-no, his sister would be going through.

As they reached the hall, the doors opened on their own, and revealed two people waiting for them, a woman neither had met before, and a familiar figure. Bianca glowered.

"Come on!" Nico exclaimed, "how did you beat us here?"

Utakata smiled at Nico, "took a shortcut." He then glanced at Bianca, his smile faltered under her glare.

The woman stepped forward, she was standing to attention, her spine so straight you'd think she was a telephone mast. She had short grey hair and her upper lip was home to a caterpillar… no she just had a moustache, never mind. "I'm Ms Gottschalk, I'll be your Tutor this year." She spoke with a sneer, like the two of them were bugs beneath her.

"Me and Ms Gottschalk here were just talking, we've managed to find a holiday home nearby for the summer. The school's actually a boarding school, so you won't have to worry about accommodation here. Ms Gottschalk here actually recommended the home, so you should thank her." Utakata said, warily looking at Bianca.

"Great." Nico said, before eyeing his suitcase, "are we walking there?"

"Yes," Ms Gottschalk said, "it will be good for getting you ready for the mandatory marches over the school year."

Utakata looked sheepish, "it's a military school, sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but it was highly recommended."

"Of course, this school was established back in the eighteen hundreds, and has a most interesting history. But enough dilly dallying." She stood to attention.

"Actually, Ms Gottschalk, I think I need to talk to my siblings, before I leave them in your capable hands." Utakata said.

"You're not staying?"

"No, because of the move, I have to go to the Maine branch and make sure the transfer went well."

"Of course." Ms Gottschalk said, "you know the address?"

"Yes, I'll be there either at the end of the day or tomorrow morning, there's just some things I need to talk with them about." He grimaced, "family matters."

"I understand, I'll go grab my coat from my office." She then marched back into the school building.

Nico began to walk forward to his bro-Utakata but Bianca put her hand in front of him, "Nico, why don't you keep an eye on Volpe for a bit, me and Utakata need to talk."

"But…" Nico looked between the two of them, confusion on his face, but even he realised there was some tension at the moment, "all right, but don't hog him, I need to say goodbye." He wondered off, fox in tow.

"Can this not wait until later?" Utakata asked, "you've had a long trip-"

"No, we're doing this now." Bianca said, her eyes burning with anger.

He sighed, "fine."

"Answer me truthfully." Bianca moved forward until she was about a foot away, both staring into the eyes of the other, the same eyes as their own. "Why did you come for me and Nico?"

Utakata looked to the side where Nico and Volpe were playing a game of fetch.

"Look me in the eye." Bianca said, he turned and they were once again looking at the mirror image of their own eyes.

"I went to… I went for Naruto, your… Volpe." He said after a deep breath, "but I-"

"So, it was all a lie?" Bianca glared, "all of it was based on a lie?"

"No, I-"

"Go." Bianca whispered, "I don't want to see you ever again. I don't want you near me or Nico, I want you to stay away from us." Her voice never rose above the whisper, but it was full of so much acid Utakata stepped back as if stung.

"Bianca-"

"Don't 'Bianca' me. You tricked us."

"You're my sister, I-"

"No. I'm not your sister, and Nico is not you're brother." Bianca said, her voice harsh, Utakata looked like she hit him, "me and Nico… we are alone." A memory flashed before Utakata, what Naruto said after he found out about their betrayal. "You need to stay away."

"I-I can't, not-"

"Stay away from us." Shadows started to gather and lengthen, they shifted, murmured and clambered over each other in a cacophony of darkness.

"You-"

"I don't care, I want you to leave!" She yelled, the shadow beneath Utakata's feet darkened and he fell into the abyss. Bianca bent over panting, her breath coming in gasps.

"Sis!" Nico ran over and grabbed Bianca by the shoulders, "what happened? Where's Utakata?"

Bianca looked her brother in the eyes, the same eyes as Utakata's, before looking away, the anger leaving until only sadness remained, "h-he had to go."

"What, but…" Nico's face darkened, "he didn't say goodbye."

"Nico… he's a busy guy, he had a lot to do, he said he mightn't be around for a while there's a lot needed done."

"But…"

"Come here." She said, wrapping him in a hug.

"Sis." Nico said.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you crying?"

"I'm not…" She dabbed her eyes, they came back wet, "nothing to worry about."

"Ah, you're brother's away then?" Ms Gottschalk came out of the building, a large fluffy coat in her arms, "a shame. Well, let's get going, we're not getting any closer, and I want to be there in an hour."

Bianca grabbed Whiskers, Ms Gottschalk looked like she was going to say something, but her eyes went glassy for a minute and she just started walking.

(The Underworld)

Utakata appeared on the far side of the river Styx and collapsed to it's shore. He sat in silence for a moment, before standing up and walking away. He wondered aimlessly until he came to Cerberus. The dog barked at him for a moment, but he didn't fear the beast. After sniffing him, the monster backed off and let him pass through.

He soon found himself wondering through the fields of Asphodel, the spectres of the dead backed away from him.

Finally, he let loose his grief, another family gone, because of him. They didn't want him. He roared at the ceiling of the underworld, shadows writhed around him, the ground trembled and the spirits fled, not wanting to face the wrath of the son of Hades.

After his anger had subsided he found himself standing in a field alone. An apt description of how he felt.

He looked around, for as far as he could see, there was just nothing, no one. He was truly alone.

"Um, Mr…"

He was startled by the voice and turned around in a flash. There was the ghost of a girl, young, no older than eleven or twelve. He couldn't make out much of her features, blurred as they were. But there was something about her, something special, something familiar.

"Sorry but are you alright." She sounded scared, understandable all things considered.

"Who are you?" He asked, but thought better of it later, the ghouls in the fields of Asphodel had no memory, they just slowly faded away-

"Hazel, Hazel Levesque."

Utakata starred at her, how could she remember?

Hazel shuffled nervously under his gaze.

Utakata hummed, trying to figure out this mystery, "how did you die?"

The girl looked down, "I… I was trying to stop Terra, she was using me… my power… my curse to bring back her son… I did it, but I caused the cavern to collapse…"

"Why aren't you in Elysium?"

She looked away, eyeing a tree in the distance, the outline of a ghost could be seen at the base of it, the spirits were coming back it seemed, no longer afraid of him, or maybe they had just forgotten, their minds rarely retain anything.

"My mother…" Hazel said finally, he didn't press for more.

"What is your curse?"

"I bring… gems, gold… anything valuable… it comes to me… I can't control it… they're cursed though! Everyone who touches them…" She looked away.

A thought came to Utakata, "who is your father?"

"Pluto… lord of the underworld."

The living son of Hades and Pluto was shocked, his eyes widened in surprise, "… another sister… another chance." He whispered.

"Sorry?"

"Come with me." Utakata smiled at her.

 **A/N: Right, so I know this may be a bit strange, but I'm not trying to get anyone to hate Bianca. I know she isn't being nice to Utakata right now, but picture it from her perspective, she's just found out not only is her dad alive, but he's a god, there's monsters after her and her fox isn't a fox, her brother who made her life so much better was there for his own agenda, and wants to take her fox from her. She's really stressed from all this information overload, of course she isn't going to be making the best choices, right now, all she wants is for things to go back to normal, and the closest thing to that is for it to be just her and Nico. Just... try and consider how this is for her.**

 **Also, I was doing most of that for that finale... Hazel's coming... Yay!**

 **Okay, so I'm doing this for a couple of reasons, one, it links into Utakata's fatal flaw, which... yeah I haven't been addressing the jinchuuriki's fatal flaws much. I won't say what it is, but I'm sort of trying to hint at it here. Another reason I'm doing this is that Hazel's thirteen in canon (her eighties technically but semantics) and Frank is sixteen...**

 **Also, I kind of just want more Hazel... to be honest, I'm having a bit of a blank with the Roman side of things, so Hazel being introduced is something that can help.**

 **Another thing, I know adding Hana on the trip to the sea of monsters may seem a bit** **sporadic, but it is for something I completely forgot about until this chapter, I had meant to say it last chapter in the meeting, but I just forgot, oops. But there is a reason for it... a good reason...**

 **Also, I might be doing a one shot, so it might slow down my update, sorry in advance if I do decide to do it.**

 **And another thing, I didn't mention anything about the foxes getting sick, but it's sort of a continuation of when the froze up at the tree towards the start... remember that... well that's were it's going. It hasn't affected any of the other foxes (yet) only the foxes near the tree.**

 **I think that's all, so see you next update, thanks for reading.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Hello! Probably going to be the last update for a while, I might be able to squeeze in one or two between now and June, but I have exams soon... so there might be a bit of a gap between updates, but then its the summer! Yay!**

 **On with the story:**

Alarm bells rang throughout the ship.

The captain's gravelly voice called out: "All hands-on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?"

"Get up, Yankee. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance." He said, looming over Percy's bunk.

"The entrance to what?"

He gave a skeletal smile. "The Sea of Monsters, of course."

Percy looked in his lap, wondering where the hot-water bottle he had grown used to had gone. He wasn't happy with what he saw.

In his lap, were once the fox would wake him up by licking his face and barking happily to play, now Anchor was shivering, whining pitifully. The fox looked up at him, and the normally bright, happy blue eyes were gone, replaced with dead blue orbs, too tired to stay open. His normally silver fur looked grey and didn't shine like normal. He was smaller too, normally, he was about the size of a colie, even when they found out he could change size, he just seemed more comfortable like that. Now though, Percy could nearly hold him in one hand.

"Hey buddy." Percy said, gently lifting up the poor fox, he whined at the movement. Percy grimaced. "Fine, you stay here for now, we'll sort you out… don't worry." He stood up and put the fox on his bunk, wrapping him up in a blanket and tucking him in. "I'll be back in a minute. Don't worry." He whispered to the fox, gently petting him.

He grabbed all his stuff and started packing it into a sailor's canvas knapsack. He looked to Anchor, who had dozed off now, then to the bag. He had a sneaking suspicion that one way or another they would not be spending another night aboard the CSS Birmingham. He winced as he lifted the fox as gently as he could. Trying not to rouse him, he placed the wrapped-up fox in the top of his knapsack so that his head was sticking out, giving him plenty of room to breathe.

Then, he slung the bag over his front, so Anchor's head was just below his chin. He absentmindedly scratched him under the chin, and the fox moved in to his hand, seeming to enjoy it.

On the way upstairs Percy froze. Anchor growled in his sleep, only to groan in pain right after.

Instead of going up, he crept to the edge of the ventilation grate and peered down into the boiler deck. Clarisse was standing right below them, her fox, Bandit was in her arms, looking just as bad as Anchor. She was talking to an image that shimmered in the steam from the boilers, a muscular man in black leather biker clothes, with a military haircut, red-tinted sunglasses, and a knife strapped to his side.

Ares, the god of war.

Percy clenched his fist in anger.

"I don't want excuses, little girl!" he growled.

"Y-yes, father," Clarisse mumbled.

"You don't want to see me mad, do you?"

"No, father."

"No, father," Ares mimicked. "You're pathetic. I should've let one of my sons take this quest."

"I'll succeed!" Clarisse promised, her voice trembling. "I'll make you proud."

"You'd better," he warned. "You asked me for this quest, girl. If you let that slime ball Jackson kid steal it from you-"

"But the Oracle said-"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAID!" Ares bellowed with such force that his image shimmered. "You will succeed. And if you don't..."

He raised his fist. Clarisse flinched.

"Do we understand each other?" Ares growled.

The alarm bells rang again. Voices were coming toward Percy, officers yelling orders to ready the cannons.

He crept back from the ventilation grate and made my way upstairs to join Annabeth, Hana and Tyson on the spar deck.

Annabeth was sitting down next to Whiskers, who somehow looked worse than Anchor and Bandit, he was hunched over and breathing deeply, his breaths coming in wheezes. He was coughing every few breaths, when he did, Annabeth would gently rub his back, and softly speak to him, inaudible to Percy.

Hana's hat covered her eyes, giving nothing away.

They were all silent.

Clarisse came up the stairs a few minutes later. She was holding Bandit close to her chest like she was afraid someone to take him off her, her fingers were white. The fox whined, and her grip loosened, she whispered something before moving him into one arm to grab a pair of binoculars and glared at the horizon.

"Captain, full steam ahead!" She roared.

The sky was overcast, seeming to fit the mood just right. The air was hazy and humid, like steam from an iron. A couple of dark fuzzy splotches in the distance could be made out if you squinted.

The engine groaned as they increased speed.

Tyson muttered nervously, "too much strain on the pistons. Not meant for deep water."

After a few more minutes, the dark splotches ahead came into focus. To the north, a huge mass of rock rose out of the sea, an island with cliffs at least a hundred feet tall. About half a mile south of that, the other patch of darkness was a storm brewing. The sky and sea boiled together in a roaring mass.

Annabeth looked up from Whiskers and stared at the mass of clouds in confusion.

"Hurricane?" She asked.

"No," Clarisse said. "Charybdis."

Annabeth looked away and stared at the daughter of Ares. "Are you crazy?"

"Only way into the Sea of Monsters. Straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla."

Clarisse pointed to the top of the cliffs.

"What do you mean the only way?" Percy asked. "The sea is wide open! Just sail around them."

Clarisse rolled her eyes and growled lightly. "Don't you know anything? If I tried to sail around them, they would just appear in my path again. If you want to get into the Sea of Monsters, you have to sail through them."

"What about the Clashing Rocks?" Annabeth said. "That's another gateway. Jason used it."

"I can't blow apart rocks with my cannons," Clarisse said. "Monsters, on the other hand..."

"You are crazy!" Annabeth yelled.

"Watch and learn, Wise Girl." Clarisse turned to the captain. "Set course for Charybdis!"

"Aye, m'lady."

Hana stood up and stood in front of Clarisse. "We haven't heard back from Yagura yet." She said, "we need to wait, for all we know, this isn't necessary."

"No!" Clarisse roared, "we aren't waiting any longer," she shot a quick, almost unnoticeable look to Bandit, before turning back to the daughter of Hephaestus, "if you can't contact her then tough, but we're going in now."

"Wait, what happened to-"

Percy was drowned out by the sound of the engine groaning, the iron plating rattled, and the ship began to pick up speed. His previous thought disappeared as they oved closer to the storm.

"Clarisse," Percy said, "Charybdis sucks up the sea. Isn't that the story?"

"And spits it back out again, yeah."

"What about Scylla?"

"She lives in a cave, up on those cliffs. If we get too close, her snaky heads will come down and start plucking sailors off the ship."

"Choose Scylla then," He suggested. "Everybody goes below deck and we chug right past."

"No!" Clarisse insisted. "If Scylla doesn't get her easy meat, she might pick up the whole ship. Besides, she's too high to make a good target. My cannons can't shoot straight up. Charybdis just sits there at the centre of her whirlwind. We're going to steam straight toward her, train our guns on her, and blow her to Tartarus!"

She almost sounded excited, but her gaze strayed to Bandit, her eyes hardened.

The engine hummed. The boilers were heating up so much the deck started getting warm beneath their feet. The smokestacks billowed. The red Ares flag whipped in the wind.

As they got closer to the monsters, the sound of Charybdis got louder and louder, a horrible wet roar like the galaxy's biggest toilet being flushed. Every time Charybdis inhaled, the ships shuddered and lurched forward. Every time she exhaled, their ships rose in the water and were buffeted by ten-foot waves.

It took Charybdis about three minutes to suck up and destroy everything within a half-mile radius. To avoid her, they would have to skirt right next to Scylla's cliffs.

Annabeth stood next to Percy, holding onto both Whiskers and the rail in front of them. "You still have your thermos full of wind?"

He nodded. "But it's too dangerous to use with a whirl-pool like that. More wind might just make things worse."

"What about controlling the water?" she asked. "You're Poseidon's son. You've done it before."

She was right. He closed his eyes and tried to calm the sea but couldn't concentrate. The waves wouldn't respond.

"I—I can't," he said miserably.

"Maybe your sister can."

"She can't" Hana spoke up, "she tried, couldn't get a good grip, it's like trying to fight off Charybdis bare handed."

"How do you… Never mind." Annabeth said. "We need a backup plan. This isn't going to work."

"Annabeth is right," Tyson said. "Engine's no good."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Pressure. Pistons need fixing."

Before he could explain, the cosmic toilet flushed with a mighty roar! The ship lurched forward, and they were thrown to the deck. Anchor woke with a whine, Percy pet him gently as he tried to re-gain his footing.

Now, they were in the whirlpool.

"Full reverse!" Clarisse screamed above the noise. The sea churned around them, waves crashing over the deck. The iron plating was now so hot it steamed. "Get us within firing range! Make ready starboard cannons!"

Dead Confederates rushed back and forth. The propeller grinded into reverse, trying to slow the ship, but it kept sliding toward the centre of the vortex.

A zombie sailor burst out of the hold and ran to Clarisse. His grey uniform was smoking. His beard was on fire. "Boiler room overheating, ma'am! She's going to blow!"

"Well, get down there and fix it!"

"Can't!" the sailor yelled. "We're vaporizing in the heat."

Clarisse pounded the side of the casemate. "All I need is a few more minutes! Just enough to get in range!"

"We're going in too fast," the captain said grimly. "Prepare yourself for death."

"No!" Tyson bellowed. "I can fix it."

Clarisse looked at him incredulously. "You?"

"Me to." Hana said, moving forward, standing near the same height as the cyclops.

"Go!" yelled Clarisse.

"No!" Percy grabbed his arm. "It's too dangerous!"

Tyson patted him on the hand. "Only way, brother." His expression was determined, confident, even. "I will fix it. Be right back."

Hana paused and looked Percy in the eye, they were blotchy, like she'd been crying, but her voice gave nothing away, "I'll make sure he's okay." She said and turned to follow the cyclops.

They both followed the soldering sailor down the hatch Percy wanted to go after them, but the ship lurched again, and Charybdis came into view.

She appeared only a few hundred yards away, through a swirl of mist and smoke and water.

The first thing you noticed was the reef: a black crag of coral with a fig tree clinging to the top, an oddly peaceful thing in the middle of a maelstrom. All around it, water curved into a funnel, like light around a black hole. Then you saw the horrible thing anchored to the reef just below the waterline—an enormous mouth with slimy lips and mossy teeth the size of rowboats. And worse, the teeth had braces, bands of corroded scummy metal with pieces of fish and driftwood and floating garbage stuck between them.

Charybdis was an orthodontist's nightmare. She was nothing but a huge black maw with bad teeth alignment and a serious overbite, and she'd done nothing for centuries but eat without brushing after meals.

The entire sea around her was sucked into the void. Sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid, and in a few seconds, the CSS Birmingham would be next.

"Lady Clarisse," the captain shouted. "Starboard and forward guns are in range!"

"Fire!" Clarisse ordered.

Three rounds were blasted into the monster's maw. One blew off the edge of an incisor. Another disappeared into her gullet. The third hit one of Charybdis' retaining bands and shot back at the ship, snapping the Ares flag off its pole.

"Again!" Clarisse ordered. The gunners reloaded, but it was hopeless.

Then the vibrations in the deck changed. The hum of the engine got stronger and steadier. The ship shuddered, and they started pulling away from the mouth.

"They did it!" Annabeth said.

"Wait!" Clarisse said. "We need to stay close!"

"We'll die!" Percy yelled. "We have to move away."

They all tried to hold onto the railing and their various foxes as the ship fought against the suction. The broken Ares flag raced past and lodged in Charybdis' braces. There wasn't much progress being made, but they were holding their own. Their new engineers had somehow given them just enough juice to keep the ship from being sucked in.

Suddenly, the mouth snapped shut. The sea died to absolute calm. Water washed over Charybdis.

Then, just as quickly as it had closed, the mouth exploded open, spitting out a wall of water, ejecting every-thing inedible, including the cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.

They were thrown backward on a wave at least forty feet high. They were spinning out of control, hurtling toward the cliffs on the opposite side of the strait.

Another soldering sailor burst out of the hold. He stumbled into Clarisse, almost knocking them both over-board. "The engine is about to blow!"

"Where's Tyson?" Percy demanded, almost forgetting about Hana.

"Still down there, with the giant." the sailor said. "Their holding it together somehow, though I don't know for how much longer."

"We have to abandon ship." The captain said.

"No!" Clarisse yelled.

"We have no choice, m'lady. The hull is already crack-ing apart! She can't-"

He never finished his sentence. Quick as lightning, something brown and green shot from the sky, snatched up the captain, and lifted him away. All that was left were his leather boots.

"Scylla!" a sailor yelled, as another column of reptilian flesh shot from the cliffs and snapped him up. It happened so fast it was like watching a laser beam rather than a monster. Just a flash of teeth and scales.

Percy uncapped Riptide and tried to swipe at the monster as it carried off another deckhand but was way too slow.

"Everyone get below!" He yelled.

"We can't!" Clarisse drew her own sword. "Below deck is in flames."

"Lifeboats!" Annabeth said. "Quick!"

"They'll never get clear of the cliffs," Clarisse said. "We'll all be eaten."

"We have to try. Percy, the thermos."

"I can't leave Tyson!" He roared.

"We have to get the boats ready!"

Clarisse took Annabeth's command. She and a few of her undead sailors uncovered one of the two emergency rowboats while Scylla's heads rained from the sky like a meteor shower with teeth, picking off Confederate sailors one after another.

"Get the other boat." Percy threw Annabeth the thermos. "I'll get Tyson."

"You can't!" she said. "The heat will kill you!"

He ran for the boiler room hatch, when suddenly pain tore through him and his feet weren't touching the deck anymore. He vaguely heard someone yell, and the weight off the front of him fell off, but mostly he just felt the pain in his side. He barely even cared that he was flying straight up the side of the cliff. He nearly bounced off it, only inches away from the nearest cliff wall. He coughed out blood, splattering the cliff with the red ichor.

Scylla had caught him in her jaws and was lifting him up toward her lair. Percy struggled to move, his sword felt heavy, he twisted around, despite his body's protests and swung Riptide, just about managing to jab the thing in her beady yellow eye. She grunted and dropped him.

As he fell the CSS Birmingham exploded below, chunks of ironclad went flying in either direction like a fiery set of wings.

He slowly started to fall out of consciousness, just managing to see the lifeboats drift away from the ship, but not very far. Flaming wreckage was raining down. Clarisse and Annabeth would either be smashed or burned or pulled to the bottom by the force of the sinking hull, and that was thinking optimistically, assuming they got away from Scylla.

Then the sound of Hermes's magic thermos being opened a little too far rang through the sky. White sheets of wind blasted in every direction, scattering the lifeboats, lifting Percy out of his free fall and propelling him across the ocean.

At this point, his body decided to give up on his conscious mind, figuring that keeping him awake would just do more harm. As he hit the water, the world drifted away into nothingness.

(Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea)

Yagura gasped awake. She sat up and looked around, she was on her boat, in the middle of nowhere. All around her, the ocean went on forever, where was she?

As if answering her own question, the answer came to her, the Mediterranean Sea, her exact location showed up in the form of co-ordinates, but they meant nothing to her. She blinked in shock, partially at the fact that she knew that somehow, and partially at the fact that she had somehow gone from America to Greece without noticing.

"What the Hades happened?" She asked herself.

No response, well, at least she wasn't going mad.

She glanced around, her ship seemed a bit beat up, a few dent and scratches marred the deck, the paint looked chipped nearly everywhere. It was still floating though, so that was good.

She wiped the sweat from her head, the sun was beating down on her, it looked about mid-day.

She tried to remember what happened, the last thing she could think of was talking to Hana about cheating the sea of monsters and using her magic boat to get in. She had told Hana to stay with Clarisse, not wanting to risk her getting injured again from her boat, Hana wasn't happy, but relented anyway. Then, she went in, plugged in the co-ordinates and hit the button.

After that… it was normal… until her ship started to rise into the sea of monsters. She felt… something… go wrong but had no time to react. The water seemed to turn against her, then… it was strange. Normally, when she was on her ship she felt in control, the ocean was hers to command, nothing could go wrong.

But in that moment, it was like someone else kicked her from the steering wheel.

Then… blank.

She made her way back to the wheel, simply staring at it.

What had happened?

She gingerly grabbed the wheel, it felt normal, like it always did, the power, the control, all at the tips of her fingers.

She moved away from the wheel and took a seat. She closed her eyes and entered the mindscape, no one was there.

No help from anyone else then.

With a sigh she stood up and went to her navigation console. It was a mess, instead of the normal map, it was all static.

So, she wouldn't be able to just go the way she normally did. She went back to the wheel, already knowing which way to go, the ship followed her commands and jolted forward, heading back to America.

She stared on the horizon, by her calculations, at top speed, it would be about a week to get back.

Panic struck her, how would she make it in time for the tree to be saved, could the others make it without her?

She scolded herself, of course they could, she wasn't even supposed to be on this quest, she was mostly there as a distraction for anyone on the Titans side of things, well that didn't go to plan by the looks of it.

"Well, better get sailing." She muttered to herself.

She looked to the horizon again, it looked clear… wait, what was that?

In the distance, there was a huge cloud, it was directly in front of her.

"What is that?" She asked.

It was too far away to see clearly, it soon dawned on her, it was a storm cloud.

And it was getting closer.

(The Underworld)

Hazel took his hand and he pulled her to her feet, the shade of the daughter of Pluto shimmered with happiness. She would get another chance. She would get to live!

She followed the man as he led her through the fields. The other spirits scrambled out of his way, not daring to face his wrath. She stuck behind him, trying not to be seen, but it seemed that the eyes of all the dead were focused on her.

The walked for ages, passing thousands of dead. For a moment, she thought she saw a familiar spirit.

Her mother.

She briefly stopped and stared back into the crowd, but she was gone. Maybe she was just seeing things.

In front of her, he turned around, giving her a questioning look. She ran to catch up, not even realising that he had gotten so far ahead of her.

She made it to his side and tried to keep pace with him, he slowed down when he noticed her begin to struggle. She tried to gather up the courage to ask him something, the soft whispers of her fellow dead were even worse now that there was someone else who could talk with her.

"How long?" He asked, not looking away.

"I… I'm sorry?"

"How long have you been dead for?"

"I'm not sure." She looked at the other spirits, "this place… I don't know how long it's been."

"Do you remember when you died?"

She nodded.

"When?"

"1941."

He paused, turning to face her with an unreadable expression, she tried to match his gaze, but his dark eyes unnerved her.

"Things… things have changed a lot." He said.

He started walking again, Hazel beside him, finally she managed to muster up the courage to ask her question, "who are you?"

He paused and seemed to look startled. "Sorry, I guess I never really introduced myself." He turned to face her properly, "hello, my name is Utakata, I'm your brother, a son of Pluto."

Her eyes widened.

"You…" She couldn't even finish the sentence.

"Yeah."

They were in silence again for a short while before Hazel spoke again.

"How… how are you going to bring me back?"

Utakata was silent for a moment, "we're going to walk out the front door, ask Charon for a lift and come out in L.A."

"But… won't someone stop us."

Utakata didn't answer.

They came to the end of the field, this was the only movement going against them, streams of the dead entered, security keeping an eye on them. Utakata just walked through them, they spread in fear, the security looked confused. Hazel stayed close, all too aware that the eyes of the dead never strayed from her.

Finally, they came to the exit, they passed the metal detectors, which didn't go off, no one stopped them. Soon, they made their way out of the Asphodel fields, for the first time in decades, Hazel saw something new.

They continued walking, until they reached the end of the ques, the line for judgement was long, and it wasn't moving at all. Utakata frowned at the sight but kept walking.

Finally, they reached the end of the line and found three figures standing in front of them.

All shimmered oddly, their features hard to tell, but Hazel remembered them, or at least, what they were.

"Stop, son of Hades." The judge on the right said.

Utakata stopped, Hazel behind him. He stared down the three judges of the underworld without any fear. "Why?"

"You are breaking rules no mortal has any right breaking." The one in the middle said.

"You're in my way." Utakata snarled, his eyes glimmering darkly.

"Your father will not allow this." The judge on the left said.

"Then why doesn't he tell me as much?"

"He has… other matters to deal with." The right judge said.

"What matters?"

"He is preparing, getting-" The middle judge started.

"Be silent, Minos, he does not need to know." Right growled.

The middle sneered, or maybe he didn't, you couldn't make out much of his facial expression. "If the boy wishes to know, Aiakos, he should be allowed."

"The business of our lord is none of our concerns." The left judge said.

Utakata moved to leave while they descended in to bickering, but the one on the right, Aiakos, caught his movement, "you may not leave with her, son of Hades."

"She deserves life."

"No one escapes the Underworld. It is the job of all denizens of the Underworld to ensure that no one escapes."

"You want to talk of jobs?" Utakata sounded angry, "it is your job to judge heroes," he gestured to Hazel, "you let her, a daughter of Pluto, who sacrificed herself in a heroic act, to go to the fields of Asphodel."

"She chose that?"

Utakata turned to Hazel, she nodded softly, "I couldn't let mother be punished." She hiccupped a little and tried to hold back tears, he had given her hope. And now it was being dashed away, she would go back to the fields of Asphodel to spend eternity wandering aimlessly.

"She is a child." Utakata growled, she sacrificed everything, and you took her mother away from her.

"You know nothing of their crimes." Minos sneered.

"Then enlighten me." Utakata said, moving closer to them, until he was right in front of them, glaring them down, "what crime would allow a hero to be separated from their mother?"

"She worked with Gaia." Terra? Hazel thought, but maybe Minos just misspoke, "attempting to rise one of her sons. Alcyoneus, bane of Pluto. She made his body anew."

Utakata looked at her and she bowed her head, shame running through her, it was all her fault.

"Yet she died a hero."

He sounded so sure that she looked up in shock.

"Yes, she destroyed his body, sacrificing herself in the process." The yet unnamed judge said.

"Her mother was under the influence of Gaia." Aiakos said, Gaia again, why aren't they saying Terra?

"And you punished her for that?"

"She tried to help-"

"I don't care what she did, she was wrongly judged." Utakata glared, "does our father know that you sent his daughter to Asphodel for no reason?" Did he? Had her father allowed her to spend so long there, alone, remembering everything? Did he not care?

"Yes, he knew." Minos said.

Hazel felt her heart sink, her dad didn't care about her, he left her to rot. For a wile she felt angry at him, but the feelings disappeared, the anger just didn't stick, instead, all she felt was sadness.

"That's not entirely true." The unnamed judge said.

"Be quiet, Rhadamanthus." Minos snarled.

"Quiet." Utakata snarled to the judge.

"Pluto put rules in place for his children, so that he can't judge them unfairly, he is not allowed to know about the trial, and cannot interfere in their judgement."

"Be silent." Minos yelled at the other judge, but he paid him no heed.

"He does keep an eye on the judgement, though, to make sure his children aren't being unfairly judged, and since he normally knows about their death, he can sit in, in a second trial to go over the evidence again if he feels they are receiving a harsh punishment."

"Normally?" Utakata asked, his voice stiff.

"Due to circumstances around her death, Lord Pluto knows nothing about how she died, only that she was involved in Gaia's child rising."

Utakata made a noise somewhere between a growl and teeth grinding, "so you punished her unfairly?"

"No!" Minos growled.

"I am taking her." Utakata snarled at them, "I am taking her back to the mortal realm, no matter what you say."

"You can't." Minos said, "no one gets out of the Underworld, the dead stay dead."

"Tough." Utakata grabbed Hazel by the hand and started walking again.

"She won't have a body." Rhadamanthus said, Utakata stopped, "you cannot properly resurrect her with no body to go to. She will stay a shade, and soon, your father will come for her, she will be sent to the fields of punishment, and her fate will be worse."

Utakata growled, and turned on them, "she will live again, I will make sure of it."

"We cannot allow this." Aiakos said.

"Think about her, she's better here, if she goes up there, she'll not live, only having a half-life, it isn't worth it. and eventually, your father will find out, and she will be hunted."

Her brother glared, but now there was something else in his eyes, a hint of fear?

"There has to be a way." He said, though he tried to sound angry, the fear was now clear in his voice.

The judges were silent for a moment, before Minos spoke, "well, there may be one way." You could hear the smirk in his voice.

"No." Aiakos said, "we cannot allow that."

"Come now." His voice was filled with so much sincerity it didn't sound natural, "he is a son of Ha-Pluto, she is his daughter, we can surely make an exception, so long as he pays the… price."

"No." Aiakos said, "it cannot be done."

"What is it? What are you talking about." Hazels brother stared between them, eyes narrow.

"It is not something that should be done, it goes against your fathers will."

"I don't care. Just tell me what to do."

"A life for a life." Minos said, his voice smug.

"What?" Hazel squeaked.

"You get to return to the mortal realm to live out your life," Minos said to Hazel, "and in exchange, your brother here will bring someone to Hades who has cheated death."

Hazel's eyes widened, and her mouth fell open, "you want him to… k-kill someone."

"I'll do it." Her brother said, he was looking at the ground, his hair overshadowing his eyes.

"No, this isn't-"

"I said I'll do it!" Utakata stared between the three sprits, but avoided his sisters gaze, "who?"

"Someone who has escaped punishment, so many times." Minos said, a cruel grin on his face.

"Enough Minos." Aiakos said, "we cannot allow him to kill a mortal, and your vendetta against _him_ is not going to be what brings the wrath of Pluto on to us."

"But he-"

"There is someone else." Rhadamanthus said, staring at Utakata, "we are aware you are not a normal demi-god, you should be able to do this task, and I don't think you will be as surprised by the revelations given from this… quest."

"No, he has to kill him, he had avoided punishment for-"

"I know who you are talking about, but there is someone else who needs punishment more. Someone who has escaped the wrath of our lord for far longer than he who orchestrated your death."

"You can't send him there!" Aiakos, "if lord Pluto finds out-"

"He can do it, he is strong enough, lord Pluto has bragged enough about his son's strength."

"No!" Minos roared, "he must kill Daedalus!"

"No. This man has avoided punishment for far too long, his current… jailers are inept, he has escaped and caused too much chaos under them, no soul has ever successfully escaped this Underworld without outsider help, and his friends cannot reach here."

"This means going against them."

"They are weak now, and their mortals won't be able to do anything if he captures him."

"Then we vote on it." Aiakos looked at Hazel, "those in favour of sending him after Daedalus?" Minos glared when he was alone in his vote, "those sending him after," he looked at Hazel once more, " _him?_ " Both he and Rhadamanthus raised a hand, "its settled." Minos spirit somehow looked like it was pouting? Huffing?

"It is foolish to send him," Minos huffed, "he'll be dead as soon as he's found."

"No, he is strong, he'll-"

"Who is the target?" Utakata asked, interrupting their bickering.

"Brother…" Hazel whispered, "you don't have-"

"But I will." He didn't sound angry, or sad, or even regretful, he just sounded… empty.

"She cannot be here; your target is someone who… she can't know about."

"You are not taking her back to the fields of Asphodel." His voice hardened.

"Fine, we will keep her in the judgment pavilion, we will take care of her."

"How can I insure you keep your end of the deal?"

"I swear upon the Styx, so long as you do our task, we will bring your sister back, and until the task is done, we shall watch over her in the judgement pavilion, she will come to no harm under us."

The world shuddered at the oath.

"So, who is he?"

Rhadamanthus, nodded to Aiakos and then gestured he take Hazel, he moved to grab her arm, but Utakata grabbed his shoulder, "don't touch her, if there is anything wrong with her when I come back, it won't be the Styx who'll take the debt."

He then turned to Hazel, "please don't do this." She said, "you don't need to do anything for me, you don't know me."

"You're my sister." He said, laying a hand on her shoulder, "that's all I needed to know about you."

He then turned away and walked over to Rhadamanthus, Hazel didn't hear much about what he said, following the Aiakos, but she did hear what he said first.

"What do you know of the Egyptians?"

 **A/N: Hahahaha.**

 **Yay! Kane Cronicles crossover... sort of... maybe... they probably won't be there, since they're like... two... three years off the red pyramid. But the** **Egyptian** **gods! Yay!**

 **Also, Percy was bit instead of his bag. This was done simply because he had Anchor to look after, will he live... probably, he's a title character, no he's The title character.**

 **Also Yagura's in Greece, yeah, so I sort of figured that having a magical boat was a bit OP for this quest, you know, since she could just sort of pop up right beside Polyphemus Island and break in, book over, see ya. So instead, someone (or something) basically kicked her out and she popped up in Greece, and now has a storm to deal with.**

 **Also, Hana and Tyson were in the engine room.**

 **Also, going back to my first point, Kane Chronicles (yay) but also, who do you think has been escaping punishment under the Egyptian guard, who could it be?**

 **...Seriously, who could it be?**

 **I've narrowed who it will probably be to like, three people, but I want your input, who should Utakata's target be? And Why? But mostly who?**

 **You can probably guess who I'm hinting at here, but I could go for... someone else.**

 **Also, this is just a little point here, this is far ahead I am thinking, I'm onto another series!**

 **See I know what I'm going to do (generally) up to there, I have sort of a big picture, and know where I'll be taking the story, I just need to figure out the details, but a whole lot of it is subject to change. For instance, the whole 'Yagura going to Greece thing' was something I thought up about five chapters into this book, so I went for it.**

 **I'm also trying to figure out the consequences of things happening soon, like Hazel, Nico and Bianca all being older than they were originally, and even emotionally and** **psychologically-wise (btw, not a** **psychologist** **) like all the characters having foxes, leading to things like Annabeth showing a bit more emotion because Whiskers is dying, Clarisse being angrier (somehow) etc.**

 **Well, I just wasted a bit of time ranting here, so I'm going to stop now, for now, thanks for reading, see you next time!**


End file.
